THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 


THE 
HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

BY  WARWICK  DEEPING 

AUTHOR  or 
"Sorrell  and  Son" 


A.  L.  BURT  COMPANY 

Publishers  New  York 

Published   by   arrangement    with   The    Macmillan    Company 
Printed  In  U.  S.  A. 


FEINTED  IX  THE  UNITED  STATES   OF  AHEEICA 


1021    AND    19M 

BT  THH  MAOMILLAN  COMPAUY. 


Set  tip  and  eJectrotyped.     Published  June,  1MX 
Reissued  March,   1928. 


To 

DR.  BEDFORD  FENWICK 

IN    MEMORY    OF    HIS    GREAT    KINDNESS 


20J3272G 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 


THE 
HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 


TVo  stragglers  lay  sleeping  in  an  orchard  near  the 
village  of  Beaucourt,  sprawling  upon  a  grass  bank  under 
the  branches  of  an  old  apple  tree.  The  sun  had  cleared 
the  horizon  and  hung  as  a  great  yellow  disc  in  the  purple 
boughs  of  the  beech  trees  on  the  other  side  of  the  stream. 
Overhead  stretched  the  thin  and  cloudless  blue  of  a  March 
sky.  The  grass  was  silvered  with  hoar-frost — and  in  the ' 
wood  across  the  stream  a  bird  was  singing. 

The  men  slept,  two  brown  figures  on  the  green  bank. ' 
One  sprawled  on  his  back;  the  other  lay  curled  on  his 
side.  Their  boots  were  the  colour  of  clay;  so  were  their 
faces,  the  clay-coloured  faces  of  men  who  had  been 
starved,  and  who  had  fallen  down  to  sleep  the  sleep  of 
exhaustion.  They  were  dirty  with  the  dirt  of  five  days' 
fighting  and  foot-slogging.  Their  chins  were  painted 
black  with  a  stubble  of  hair,  and  their  noses  looked  pinched 
and  thin.  They  had  no  greatcoats,  no  packs,  no  puttees, 
no  equipment ;  nothing  but  a  rifle,  a  blue  water-bottle,  and 
a  haversack  between  them.  At  the  world's  end  a  man 
gets  rid  of  unnecessary  lumber. 

The  dawn  was  extraordinarily  still.  There  was  not  a 
sound  to  be  heard  save  the  singing  of  the  bird  in  the  wood 
on  the  other  side  of  the  stream.  The  country  rolled  into 
blue-grey  distances  under  the  level  sunlight  and  the  tran- 
quil sky,  a  strangely  peaceful  landscape,  the  landscape  of 
1 


2  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

an  unvexed  and  impersonal  dawn.  Beaucourt  village  slept 
in  the  sunlight  on  the  slopes  of  its  two  hills.  No  smoke 
rose  from  the  chimneys;  no  human  sound  came  from  it. 
Beaucourt  was  empty.  The  blue  spire  of  its  church  and 
the  gold  vaned  fleches  of  the  chateau  showed  up  against 
the  purple  heights  of  the  Bois  du  Kenard. 

The  church  clock  struck  six,  six  calm  and  level  clangs 
that  were  quaintly  challenging,  almost  ironical.  From 
somewhere — a  long  way  off — came  the  soft  whoof  of  a  gun, 
an  English  gun  slewed  round  in  some  quiet  orchard  and 
firing  a  solitary  shell  or  two  into  nothingness.  There  was 
a  whine  in  the  air,  a  whine  that  quickened  over  Beaucourt 
and  became  a  menacing  and  snoring  rush.  The  shell 
burst  beyond  the  village,  smashing  an  old  apple  tree  and 
throwing  up  a  great  spurt  of  earth  and  smoke. 

The  man  who  had  been  sleeping  curled  up  on  his  side, 
sat  up  and  mopped  the  dirt  out  of  his  eyes,  using  his 
hands  like  the  paws  of  a  cat.  A  crack  of  lightning  seemed 
to  have  broken  the  sky  just  above  his  head.  The  apple 
tree  had  been  snapped  off  about  three  feet  from  the  ground, 
and  the  splintered  ends  of  the  stump  stood  up  like  torn 
tendons. 

The  other  sleeper  was  no  longer  a  man,  but  a  body. 
He  was  not  recognizable,  and  from  the  ripped  front  of 
his  tunic  a  red  identity  disc  protruded,  dangling  patheti- 
cally at  the  end  of  a  piece  of  frayed  string. 

756941  Pte.  Beckett,  T. 
2—9 Fusiliers. 

The  live  man  looked  dazed.  War  is  an  affair  in  which 
violent  and  absurd  things  happen,  and  men  forget  to  be 
astonished.  Moreover,  Paul  Brent  was  little  more  than  a 
starved  body,  a  dirty  man  sodden  with  a  week's  weari- 
ness and  moments  of  great  excitement  and  blind  fear. 

"Tom's  dead." 

He  uttered  the  words  with  the  confidential  and  mum- 
bling foolishness  of  a  drunkard.  It  seemed  quite  natural 
that  Tom  should  be  dead.  An  immense  apathy  lay  like 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  3 

so  much  stagnant  water  over  the  mud  of  Brent's  submerged 
emotions.  He  sat  and  stared  and  fingered  the  hair  on 
his  chin. 

The  man  had  been  his  comrade,  his  pal  of  pals,  one  of 
those  rough-hewn,  violent,  warm-hearted  creatures.  They 
had  fought  together,  drunk  together,  snuggled  up  close  in 
the  same  barn  or  dug-out,  shared  their  tobacco  and  a  hole 
in  the  mud.  Tom  was  dead,  and  yet  if  Brent  was  hurt 
by  his  death,  it  was  a  vague  and  animal  pain,  like  the 
groanings  of  an  empty  belly. 

He  sat  and  stared. 

His  mouth  felt  dry. 

He  noticed  that  the  water-bottle,  rifle  and  haversack 
that  lay  between  them  had  not  been  touched.  He  re- 
membered that  there  was  a  little  water  left  in  the  bottle, 
and  he  reached  for  it,  drew  the  cork  and  drank.  Some  of 
the  water  dribbled  down  his  dirty  chin. 

Brent  put  down  the  water-bottle,  and  groped  in  the 
right-hand  pocket  of  his  tunic.  A  few  bits  of  broken 
biscuit  resulted.  He  sat  and  munched  them  with  sunken- 
eyed  stolidity,  alone  in  the  midst  of  that  extraordinary 
silence,  and  noticing  how  the  sunlight  glinted  on  the  ho£ 
nails  in  Tom  Beckett's  boots. 

It  was  that  dangling  identity  disc  that  gradually  ab- 
sorbed Brent's  attention,  like  a  little  luminous  spot  of 
light,  a  red  blur  in  the  fog  of  his  exhaustion,  a  point  of 
fire  in  his  brain.  It  seemed  to  spread  and  to  expand, 
and  to  change  from  a  little  red  circle  stamped  with  a  man's 
name  to  a  picture,  a  picture  of  the  man  Beckett  himself, 
of  his  vagabondage  and  his  triumphs  and  all  his  boisterous 
good-humour.  It  seemed  to  challenge  Brent,  even  made 
him  unfasten  his  own  tunic  and  produce  the  likeness  of 
the  thing  the  dead  man  wore,  that  little  circle  that  was 
himself,  the  badge  of  a  broken  man  and  of  the  patchwork 
of  a  broken  man's  career.  It  became  a  circle  through 
which  he  looked  at  pictures,  the  pictures  of  that  other 
life  before  the  war,  his  boyhood,  the  silly  tragedy  of  his 
marriage,  his  cynical  success  and  his  still  more  cynical 


4  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

'failure,  those  moments  of  anguish  and  of  shame,  the  bitter 
gibes  that  covered  hidden  wounds. 

A  look  of  spiritualized  intelligence  sharpened  Brent's 
face.  His  eyes  ceased  to  be  dead  and  listless.  Something 
stirred  in  him,  a  passion  to  escape,  perhaps  a  hunger  for 
the  finer  things  that  had  passed  out  of  his  life.  The  coarse- 
mouthed  but  most  lovable  man  who  lay  dead  there  had 
taught  him  much — the  human  fineness  that  mattered, 
those  rough  bits  of  courage  or  gentleness  that  make  life 
something  better  than  a  selfish  scramble.  For  Beckett 
had  been  a  vagabond  with  a  religion  of  his  own,  a  homeless 
man,  a  childless  man,  and  yet  in  his  way  a  sort  of  savage 
Walt  Whitman,  finding  life  good  and  wholesome  and  free. 

Brent  sat  and  faced  it  out.  Watching  beside  his  dead 
friend  in  the  early  sunlight  of  that  spring  morning,  he 
saw  himself  as  the  shabby  failure  that  he  was,  a  man  who 
had  accepted  spiritual  bankruptcy  with  the  cynical  apathy 
of  a  tramp  who  leaves  his  self-respect  and  his  citizenship 
in  some  convenient  ditch.  Acceptance!  It  was  just  that 
blind  and  drifting  attitude  that  had  doomed  him,  while 
Beckett — the  adventurer — had  punched  his  way  towards 
a  rude  religion. 

In  that  most  singular  and  prophetic  moment  of  his 
life  Paul  Brent  had  his  vision  of  non-acceptance.  He  saw 
the  gap  in  the  wall  and  leapt  through  it,  feeling  that 
the  dead  man  was  offering  him  his  chance.  The  burly 
audacity  of  the  thing  would  have  drawn  a  laugh  and  an 
approving  punch  on  the  chest  from  the  man  who  lay  dead. 
Beckett  had  no  wife,  no  children,  no  woman  who  would 
be  hurt.  Brent  thought  of  all  that  before  he  made  his 
choice. 

There  was  an  element  of  solemnity  and  of  reverence 
in  Paul  Brent's  carrying  out  of  that  interchange  of  iden- 
tities. He  unfastened  his  own  disc,  and  that  solitary  one 
of  Beckett's.  He  felt  in  his  dead  friend's  pockets  and 
sorted  out  his  possessions,  a  complex  that  included  his 
pay-book,  a  pipe,  some  odd  buttons,  ten  francs  and  fifty 
centimes  in  money,  an  English  penny,  a  stubby  pencil 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  & 

and  a  couple  of  dirty  picture  postcards,  a  hank  of  string 
and  a  few  matches.  Brent  tied  Beckett's  identity  disc 
to  his  own  braces,  and  put  the  dead  man's  pay-book  in 
his  pocket.  His  own  disc  he  fastened  to  the  body  and 
left  the  pay-book  lying  upon  the  grass. 

Then  the  last  comradely  act  suggested  itself,  and  it 
stirred  Brent  to  vague  emotion  and  a  softening  of  hia 
red-lidded  eyes.  He  picked  up  the  rifle,  shouldered  it,  and 
walked  up  the  hill  to  Beaucourt  village  in  search  of  a 
pick  and  a  spade. 

As  he  walked  up  between  the  orchards  a  strange  calm- 
ness fell  upon  him,  a  calmness  that  was  neither  apathy 
nor  indifference.  He  became  conscious  of  the  beauty  of 
the  morning,  and  of  the  more  tragic  beauty  of  this  French 
village  with  its  red  roofs  and  its  red  and  white  walls  show- 
ing vividly  against  the  purple  of  the  Bois  du  Renard. 
Beaucourt  was  on  the  altar  of  sacrifice.  Brent  entered 
it  by  the  little  Rue  de  Rosieres,  and  he  saw  things  in  Beau- 
court  that  he  would  never  forget.  It  was  like  a  woman 
bereft  of  her  children,  standing  dazed,  with  blind  eyet 
and  open  mouth.  It  was  as  though  it  could  not  believe 
that  the  thing  had  happened  on  that  soft  day  in  the  com- 
ing of  the  spring. 

The  doors  of  nearly  all  the  little  houses  and  cottage* 
were  open,  so  that  Brent  could  see  into  the  lower  rooms. 
A  gallery  of  pictures,  impressions  of  a  silent  tragedy! 
Rooms  full  of  a  tumult  of  escape  and  of  little  treasures 
searched  for,  snatched  up  and  carried  away  out  of  a  world 
of  disorder.  Floors  littered  with  clothes,  papers,  bed- 
linen,  furniture.  Chests  of  drawers  and  cupboards  stand- 
ing open.  The  last  meal  left  upon  a  table,  dirty  plates, 
bottles,  the  chairs  pushed  back  as  the  people  had  left  them. 
In  one  cottage  Brent  had  a  glimpse  of  a  woman's  night- 
dress and  a  little  black  hat  trimmed  with  red  ribbon  hang- 
ing on  the  post  of  a  bed.  An  open  window  gave  him 
a  glimpse  of  a  child's  cot  with  the  clothes  thrown  back 
and  one  pink*  sock  left  lying.  Beaucourt  would  have  hurt 
the  heart  of  a  cynic.  At  the  corner  where  the  Rue  dft 


6  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

Rosieres  joined  the  Rue  de  Picardie  a  melancholy  and  for- 
lorn brown  dog  came  nosing  up  to  Brent  and  followed  at 
his  heels. 

Brent  petted  the  beast. 

"You  poor  old  devil." 

He  paused  outside  the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire — ironical 
yet  prophetic  name!  It  was  a  long,  two-storied,  lovable 
old  house  in  red  brick,  set  back  beyond  a  raised  path  of 
grey,  squared  stones,  and  looking  with  its  dormer  windows 
into  the  orchard  and  garden  of  the  big  stone  house  across 
the  way.  The  green  shutters  hung  open.  A  lace  curtain 
fluttered  from  one  of  the  windows.  Brent  knew  the  Cafe 
de  la  Victoire;  for  he  and  Tom  Beckett  had  drunk  red 
wine  there. 

Paul  did  not  enter  the  house,  but  scrambled  up  on  to 
the  raised  path  and  pushed  through  a  blue  door  in  the 
stone  wall  surrounding  the  garden.  There  were  pollarded 
lines  beyond  the  wall,  and  a  quaint  bosky  path  ran  between 
the  rows  of  trees.  Brent  followed  the  path,  knowing 
that  it  would  bring  him  to  the  yard  at  the  back  of  the 
house,  and  that  he  might  find  what  he  needed  in  one  of 
the  sheds.  He  had  turned  the  corner  where  a  clump  of 
old  Picardie  roses  showed  a  shimmer  of  green  shoots, 
when  he  became  aware  of  the  most  unexpected  of  all 
things — a  woman. 

The  woman  was  on  the  other  side  of  the  garden,  and 
close  to  a  gap  in  the  stone  wall  where  a  casual  shell  had 
knocked  a  little  avalanche  of  grey  stones  into  the  garden. 
She  had  a  spade  in  her  hand  and  she  had  just  finished 
pushing  back  the  earth  into  a  hole,  and  she  was  treading  a 
few  green  weeds  into  the  raw  surface  when  she  turned  her 
head  and  saw  Brent. 

Brent  knew  her.  It  was  Manon  Latour,  who  owned 
the  cafe,  and  he  guessed  that  she  had  been  burying  her 
little  treasures  there.  She  stood  motionless,  rigid,  staring 
at  him  with  eyes  that  looked  big  and  black  in  her  white 
face,  the  eyes  of  a  woman  who  was  afraid. 


n 

BRENT  felt  challenged. 

He  crossed  the  garden  towards  her,  knocking  the 
moisture  from  the  leaves  of  a  bed  of  winter-greens,  and 
atill  followed  by  the  brown  dog.  Brent's  French  was  very- 
British,  the  Army  French  of  estaminets  and  billets,  but 
his  heart  was  concerned  in  the  convincing  of  Manon. 

"Madame,  allez  vous!  Le  Boche — il  arrive — toute 
suite  1" 

She  stood  and  stared  at  him,  and  it  was  obvious  that 
she  believed  that  she  had  never  seen  him  before ;  and  his 
present  appearance  was  not  reassuring.  She  saw  a  very 
dirty  man  with  a  cut-throat's  beard  and  a  haggard  face, 
a  starved  face  in  which  the  blue  eyes  looked  like  the  cold 
eyes  of  a  corpse.  There  was  nothing  soldierly  about  him 
save  the  rifle  on  his  shoulder.  The  disreputable  indis- 
cipline of  Brent's  whole  atmosphere  suggested  the  one 
word  "loot." 

"Monsieur,  que  f aites-vous  ici  I" 

She  stood  her  ground,  and  kept  her  eyes  on  Brent's 
face.  She  was  a  black-haired,  black-eyed  little  woman 
with  a  skin  of  ivory;  in  age  about  six  and  twenty;  very 
sturdy,  very  strong.  Yet  there  was  a  softness  about  her, 
a  white  glow,  a  femininity,  that  were  wholly  pleasant  and 
appealing.  Manon  Latour  had  a  heart  and  courage.  You 
saw  the  soul  of  her  in  her  big,  dark,  watchful  eyes,  in 
her  firm  white  throat,  in  her  full-lipped,  vivid  mouth, 
in  the  confident  poise  of  her  head.  She  stood  there  and 
defied  Brent — this  disreputable  straggler  who  had  sur- 
prised her  burying  her  treasure. 

The  brown  dog  was  sniffing  at  her  black  skirt,  and  at 
the  newly  turned  soil. 


8  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

Brent  managed  to  smile,  and  the  thinness  of  his  yellow 
face  seemed  to  crack  with  it. 

"Bon  garc.on, — bon  gargon,  moi.  Allez,  madame.  Hang 
it, — do  you  think  I  would  touch  your  stuff  f " 

She  said  nothing,  but  continued  to  watch  his  face. 

Then  Paul  had  an  idea.  He  pointed  the  muzzle  of  his 
rifle  at  the  place  where  she  had  been  digging, — fumbled 
for  the  bit  of  pencil  he  had  found  in  Tom's  pocket,  and 
•walking  to  the  wall,  began  to  print  three  rapid  and  rather 
straggling  letters  on  a  piece  of  plaster. 

"R  I.  P." 

He  stood  back,  cocked  his  head  with  a  flick  of  humour, 
ismiled. 

"Compris?" 

She  understood. 

""Monsieur,  c'est  vrai  ?" 

"Oui — here, — catch  hold." 

He  pushed  the  butt  of  the  rifle  towards  her. 

"Fusillez,  si  vous  voulez — moi.  Cela  ne  fait  rien.  Oui. 
Mon  ami,  mon  comrade,  il  est  mort.  Je  suis  fini." 

She  put  the  butt  of  the  rifle  aside  with  a  gentle  little 
touch  of  the  hand.  Her  eyes  had  softened,  and  they 
were  very  beautiful  eyes. 

"Je  me  confie  a  vous,  monsieur." 

"Bon." 

The  brown  dog  looked  up  at  them  both  and  wagged 
his  tail.  He  appeared  to  approve  of  the  affair,  and  of 
Manon's  faith  in  this  scarecrow  of  a  man. 

She  walked  down  the  path  and  into  the  house,  leaving 
the  spade  she  had  used  standing  against  the  wall.  Some 
sudden  impulse  made  her  pause  in  the  doorway  and  look 
back  at  Brent.  He  had  followed  her  as  far  as  the  gate- 
way leading  into  the  yard,  and  was  resting  his  crossed 
hands  on  the  muzzle  of  his  rifle,  and  she  noticed  that  he 
jocked  slightly  from  foot  to  foot.  The  man  could  hardly 
•tand,  and  her  heart  smote  her. 

''Monsieur!" 

She  disappeared  into  the  house,  and  returned  almost 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  9 

immediately  with  her  hat  and  coat,  a  little  leather  bag, 
and  a  bottle  of  red  wine.  The  bottle  was  half  fulL 

"Monsieur,  pour  votre  sante." 

Brent  stepped  forward,  and  took  the  bottle  from  her. 
His  hand  shook. 

"Ah,  mon  pauvre  vieux — comme  vous  etes  fatigue" !" 

She  pinned  on  her  hat  while  Brent  drank  the  wine,  look- 
ing at  him  with  eyes  that  were  no  longer  hard  and  black, 
but  softly  brown  and  gentle.  She  was  aware  of  his  dry, 
cracked  lips,  the  working  of  the  muscles  in  his  throat,  a 
elight  trembling  of  the  arm  that  held  the  bottle. 

"Monsieur,  venez  avec  moi." 

Brent  stared.  He  understood.  Then  he  nodded  his 
head  at  the  spade  she  had  left  by  the  doorway. 

"Non.     Mon  ami  est  mort. — Over  there.     Compris?" 

"Le  bon  Dieu  vous  garde,"  she  said. 

She  put  on  her  coat,  picked  up  her  little  bag,  and  was 
ready  to  go.  The  brown  dog  looked  at  them  both,  and 
then  made  up  his  mind  to  escape  with  the  woman.  Brent 
went  with  her  as  far  as  the  yard  gate. 

"Au  revoir,  monsieur." 

"Bon  chance,"  he  said  with  a  cracked  smile. 

He  watched  the  little  black  figure  disappear  round  the 
angle  of  the  big  stone  house  that  jutted  out  across  the 
end  of  the  Rue  Romaine  on  the  way  to  Bonniere. 

"Damned  plucky,"  he  said  aloud;  "she  ought  to  have 
gone  long  ago." 

Brent  went  back  to  the  garden  and  the  place  where 
Manon  had  buried  her  treasure.  The  patch  of  raw  earth 
was  too  noticeable  and  too  obvious,  in  spite  of  the  weeds 
she  had  trampled  into  it,  and  Brent  looked  about  for  some- 
thing with  which  to  camouflage  it  The  smashed  walls  and 
the  scattered  stones  offered  a  suggestion.  The  main  mass 
of  the  debris  lay  close  to  the  spot  that  Manon  Latour  had 
chosen,  and  Brent  set  about  re-arranging  those  stones  with 
an  art  that  aped  reality.  The  pattern  he  made  pretended 
that  the  shell  had  struck  the  wall  at  a  slight  angle,  and 
his  casual  dotting  of  the  outlying  fragments  made  the 


10  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

trick  quite  convincing.  The  raw  earth  was  covered;  no 
one  would  trouble  to  go  poking  about  there.  He  com- 
pleted the  job  by  smudging  out  the  letters  he  had  printed 
on  the  wall,  using  a  bit  of  broken  stone  and  the  sleeve  of 
his  tunic. 

"Bon,"  he  said;  "Tom  would  never  have  touched  the 
girl's  money.  There  was  no  dirt  on  Tom." 

Brent  collected  a  pick  from  one  of  the  outhouses,  ap- 
propriated Manon's  spade,  and  returned  to  the  orchard 
above  the  stream.  This  orchard  belonged  to  Manon 
Latour ;  so  did  the  meadow  below  it,  and  a  strip  of  wood- 
land on  the  other  side  of  the  little  valley.  Brent  took 
off  his  tunic,  hung  it  on  the  stump  of  the  apple  tree  and 
began  to  dig.  The  red  wine  had  flushed  and  heartened 
him,  but  it  was  food  he  needed,  and  the  sting  of  the  wine 
soon  wore  off.  Sweat  ran  from  him ;  the  sweat  of  exhaus- 
tion; he  panted  and  nearly  fell  forward  over  his  spade 
when  he  had  lifted  the  first  layer  of  sods. 

He  sat  down  on  the  bank,  and  putting  his  head  between 
his  knees,  remained  thus  for  some  minutes.  The  faintr- 
ness  passed.  The  spirit  reasserted  itself  and  coerced  the 
body. 

He  got  to  work  again, — and  slowly  deepened  that 
narrow  trench, — giving  a  little  grunt  of  physical  anguish 
each  time  he  made  a  stroke  with  the  pick.  The  thing 
was  done  at  last,  and  Brent  stood  resting  like  an  old  man, 
leaning  on  the  handle  of  the  spade,  and  looking  at  Beck- 
ett's body.  He  had  been  so  absorbed  in  the  work,  and 
his  senses  were  so  dull  and  unalert,  that  he  was  quite  un- 
aware of  the  fact  that  a  German  patrol  had  straggled 
across  the  field  and  through  the  orchard,  and  that  an 
N.C.O.  and  four  privates  were  standing  a  few  yards  away, 
watching  him.  They,  too,  were  very  dirty,  these  "field- 
greys,"  sallow-faced  and  heavy  about  the  eyes.  They 
looked  at  Brent  with  a  mixture  of  curiosity,  amusement, 
and  the  elemental  sympathy  of  men  for  a  soldier  doing 
a  soldier's  job. 

"Hallo— Tommy!" 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVE3TTUKE  11 

Brent  turned  and  looked  at  these  "field-greys," — 
without  surprise  and  without  fear.  It  was  as  though  he 
had  expected  them.  They  were  just  dirty,  tired  men  like 
himself,  part  of  the  earth,  part  of  the  great  machine. 

"Morning,— Fritz." 

He  jerked  a  thumb  towards  the  body. 

"My  pal. — I'm  done.    Give  me  a  hand,  will  you  ?" 

The  N.C.O.  spoke  English,  but  the  affair  was  so  ele- 
mental and  so  human  that  the  whole  group  understood. 
They  helped  Brent  to  lift  the  body  into  the  grave  and  to 
put  back  the  earth,  using  their  boots  and  the  spade. 

Brent  picked  up  his  pay-book  and  handed  it  to  the 
N.C.O. 

"You  had  better  keep  that,  Fritz." 

A  young,  fair-haired  German  was  standing  close  to 
Brent  and  looking  at  him  intently.  He  noticed  the  Eng- 
lishman's dry  lips  and  pinched  nostrils,  his  dirty  chin, 
and  starved  eyes  and  forehead. 

He  nudged  Brent  with  his  elbow. 

Brent  saw  a  bit  of  brown  bread  in  the  yorng  German's 
hand. 

"Hungrig?" 

Brent  smiled. 

"I  am— that." 

He  took  the  piece  of  bread,  and  ate  with  gross  relish, 
for  he  was  famished.  The  "field-greys"  stood  around  and 
smoked  cigarettes,  English  cigarettes  picked  up  during 
the  advance.  The  N.C.O.  questioned  Brent. 

"Any  English  up  there  ?" 

Brent  shook  his  head  and  went  on  eating.  He  was 
thinking  of  Manon  Latour  trudging  along  in  the  spring 
sunshine  with  the  larks  singing  overhead. 

"She  ought  to  be  safe,"  he  thought;  "she  had  about 
an  hour's  start  Damned  nice  little  woman,  that!" 


m 

So  Brent  went  as  a  prisoner  to  Germany,  and  was  cata- 
logued as  "Number  756941  Pte.  Beckett,  T";  and  Paul 
Brent's  name  appeared  among  the  "missing,"  a  casualty 
that  was  corrected  a  few  weeks  later  to  "killed." 

Paul  Brent  was  a  prisoner,  but  he  had  escaped,  escaped 
from  the  tradition  of  blond  hair  and  a  thin  mouth,  Turkey 
carpets  and  a  three-tiered  cake-stand,  and  the  memory  of 
the  greedy  nostrils  of  a  thoroughly  respectable  but  wholly 
unprincipled  woman.  He  was  free,  even  while  he  sat 
and  peeled  potatoes  in  a  prison  hut,  washed  his  one  shirt, 
or  slept  square-backed  on  his  bed  of  boards.  A  sense  of 
liberty  soaked  into  him.  He  saw  a  new  sun,  a  new  hori- 
zon, new  stars,  a  sportsman's  chance,  a  renewal  of  tha 
great  adventure.  His  manhood  tightened  his  belt,  and 
discovered  itself  in  better  condition,  despite  its  thirty- 
seven  odd  years  and  an  incipient  plumpness  about  th» 
waist.  That  plumpness  had  disappeared  in  France  and 
Belgium,  and  Brent's  mental  flabbiness  followed  it  out  of 
the  German  prison  camp. 

Brent  happened  to  be  in  a  "mixed  camp"  for  the  first 
few  months,  and  he  set  himself  to  learn  French.  He  at- 
tacked it  with  such  fierceness  and  assiduity  that  Alphonse, 
— his  pedagogue,  a  French  waiter  with  a  family  in  Soho, 
— accused  him  of  being  in  love.  It  was  a  crude  accusation, 
and  Brent  demolished  it. 

"I  finished  with  that — five  years  ago." 
"No  nice  little  French  girl,  Mister  Beckett?" 
"Not  even  a  mam'selle.    I  want  to  be  able  to  earn  more 
money.    Business — just  business." 

I  fall  in  love  every  month,"  said  Alphonse;  "it  i« 
good  for  my  digestion." 

12 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  13 

"And  Madame's  temper?" 

"Oh,  that  is  an  affair  apart,"  said  Alphonse;  "there  is 
no  woman  like  my  Josephine.  It  is  quite  different.  She 
mends  my  socks,  and  sees  that  I  have  a  clean  collar. 
She  has  but  to  say  'Alphonse/  and  I  would  leave  all  the 
beauties  of  the  Sultan's  harem  and  carry  her  umbrella.  It 
is  the  woman  that  mends  one's  socks  who  matters." 

"I  suppose  so,"  said  Paul;  "mine  didn't." 

But  he  became  quite  a  creditable  Frenchman,  even 
picking  up  the  slang  and  the  atmosphere  of  the  language, 
and  teaching  himself  to  think  in  French.  His  accent  was 
not  too  English.  "Bong"  and  "Bo-koop"  ceased  from  his 
vocabulary.  He  learnt  to  imitate  all  Alphonse's  tricks, 
his  little  mannerisms,  his  expressive  silences,  the  way  he 
talked  with  his  shoulders,  hands,  and  even  with  his  legs 
and  buttons.  Alphonse  was  a  southerner,  and  gaillard. 
He  did  not  merely  converse ;  he  was  an  amateur  dramatic 
•ociety  in  a  shabby  ^uniform  of  French  blue. 

Then  the  War  ended,  like  a  machine  of  which  someone 
has  forgotten  to  turn  the  handle.  Brent  happened  to  have 
been  moved  into  Belgium  about  three  weeks  before  the 
Armistice,  and  the  concidence  rhymed  with  the  idea  he 
had  in  his  head.  Strange  things  happened  one  wet  night 
in  that  particular  prisoners'  camp.  There  were  rumours, 
a  panic,  an  explosion,  a  joyous  scramble  in  the  office  of 
an  alarmed  and  fugitive  commandant.  Someone  discovered 
the  official  pay-box.  German  notes,  wads  of  them,  were 
•tuffed  into  tunic  pockets,  and  Brent  was  one  of  those 

who  came  by  a  quite  respectable  handful. 

****** 

It  was  in  a  Belgian  village  on  the  road  between  Dinant 
and  Philipville  that  Paul  met  the  first  English  troops  he 
had  seen,  a  battalion  that  was  settling  into  billets  on  it» 
long  march  to  the  Rhine.  Brent  was  sludging  along  a 
lane,  a  dirty  grey  sock  showing  through  the  toe  of  his  right 
boot,  all  his  worldly  gear  in  a  German  sandbag  slung  over 
his  shoulder.  He  had  a  vile  headache,  little  prickles  of 
heat  and  shivers  of  cold  chasing  each  other  up  and  down 


14  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

his  back.  He  had  not  shaved  for  a  week,  and  his  great- 
coat was  all  mud. 

"Hallo,  chum!" 

Behind  the  outswung  black  door  «>f  a  stable  Brent  saw 
a  field-cooker  in  steaming  fettle,  and  a  couple  of  cooks  hard 
at  work.  One  of  them  was  mopping  out  a  camp-kettle 
with  a  handful  of  grass.  An  exquisite  smell  of  hot  stew 
wasted  itself  on  Brent's  nostrils. 

"Got  any  tea  ?" 

The  cook  dropped  his  camp-kettle,  and  went  and  laid 
hold  of  Brent. 

"Here — chum — hold  up!  You  come  and  sit  down. 
Been  in  Germany, — what?" 

"Yes— Oermany,"  said  Paul. 

They  sat  him  down  on  a  ration  box, — but  he  flopped  like 
a  sackful  of  old  clothes,  and  the  sympathetic  one  had  to 
act  as  a  buttress. 

"You're  done  in,  chum.  Give  us  some  of  that  stew  in 
my  mess-tin,  Harry." 

But  the  sight  and  the  smell  of  the  stew  made  Brent 
feel  sick.  The  cook  held  his  head  like  a  mother,  and 
Brent's  head  felt  dry  and  hot. 

"You  want  the  doc,  chum;  that's  what's  the  matter 
with  you.  Ten  days  in  hospital  in  a  real  bed,  between 
real  sheets, — with  a  lovely  little  nurse  feeding  you  with 
a  spoon." 

Brent  protested,  gripping  the  cook's  wrist. 

"I  don't  want  the  doc,  old  chap.  I'm  done  up,  that'i 
all.  I'd  like  a  cup  of  tea,  and  a  ration  biscuit." 

"Rot,"  said  the  cook,  "you're  ill." 

One  of  the  company  stretcher-bearers  happened  to  pas§ 
that  way. 

"Hi— Chucker,  where's  the  M.O.  ?" 

"Headquarters  mess." 

"Run  along  and  tell  him  there's  a  returned  prisoner 
here ;  he's  sick." 

"Right-oh,"  said  Chucker ;  and  he  went. 

The  battalion  doctor  came  back  with  the  stretcher- 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  15 

bearer,  feeling  aggrieved  that  he  should  be  dragged  out  at 
the  end  of  a  day's  march  to  see  some  casual  devil  who  did 
not  belong  to  his  own  crowd.  Human  nature  is  like  that, 
and  this  doctor  boy  was  unripe  and  insolent. 

"Hallo,  what's  the  matter  with  you  ?" 

Brent  was  crouching  on  the  box,  holding  his  head 
between  his  hands. 

"Headache,  sir." 

The  M.O.  looked  at  him,  brought  out  a  thermometer, 
glanced  at  the  mercury  and  gave  the  glass  tube  a  sharp 
flick. 

"Under  your  tongue.    Don't  bite  it." 

The  sympathetic  cook  was  damning  the  doctor  with  a 
pair  of  truculent  blue  eyes,  eyes  that  said  "You  blighter — 
I'd  like  to  punch  your  jaw."  But  the  officer  was  not 
sensitive  to  psychical  impressions;  he  had  left  a  game 
of  "Slippery  Sam,"  and  he  felt  Brent's  pulse  while  Brent 
sat  and  sucked  the  thermometer  with  an  air  of  vacant 
helplessness.  The  glass  tube  was  tweaked  out  of  his  mouth, 
glanced  at,  and  put  back  ia  its  metal  case. 

"Hospital  for  you,  boy." 

Brent  looked  scared.  He  did  not  want  to  go  to  hos- 
pital. 

"I'm  just  done  in,  sir.     I'll  be  all  right  to-morrow." 

"Will  you!"  said  the  doctor  tensely,  pulling  out  a 
note-book  and  beginning  to  scribble,  resting  his  foot  on 
Brent's  box,  and  the  note-book  on  his  knee. 

"Name  and  number  ?" 

"I  don't  want  to  go  to  hospital,  sir." 

"Don't  argue.     Name  and  number?" 

"No.  756941  Pte.  Beckett,  T."  said  Brent. 

"Unit?" 

"2-9th  Fusiliers." 

"Bring  him  along  to  the  medical  inspection  room,  will 
you  ?  Street  by  the  church." 

The  doctor  snapped  the  black  elastic  round  his  note- 
book and  walked  off. 

"He  ought  to  be  boiled  in  muck,"  said  the  cook. 


16  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

Five  minutes  later  this  sympathetic  and  expressive  soul 
made  a  dash  down  the  road  after  a  figure  in  a  muddy 
greatcoat,  a  figure  that  had  sneaked  out  of  the  cook- 
house with  a  staggering  determination  to  escape.  Brent 
collapsed  under  a  hedge  outside  a  cottage,  lying  face  down- 
wards in  the  mud.  His  temperature  was  104.7°. 

"What  did  you  do  it  for,  chum  ?" 

Brent  could  not  explain.    He  had  fainted. 

A  field  ambulance  car  collected  Paul  Brent  and  carried 
him  off  to  another  village  where  he  lay  in  a  barn  for  half 
an  hour,  flushed  and  torpid,  yet  resenting  the  efforts  of 
an  orderly  to  make  him  drink  hot  cocoa.  An  office* 
came  and  examined  him,  a  very  quiet  man  with  a  big 
fair  moustache  and  intelligent  eyes.  Ten  minutes  later 
Brent  was  put  on  a  stretcher  in  one  of  the  big  Daimlers, 
with  a  card  in  a  brown  envelope  fastened  to  one  of  the 
buttons  of  his  greatcoat;  there  were  two  other  patients 
in  the  car.  The  quiet  officer  climbed  in  and  assured  him- 
self that  Brent  was  well  covered  with  blankets. 

"Feel  warm  enough  ?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"Don't  you  worry.    You'll  soon  be  comfortable." 

The  officer's  voice  made  Brent  do  an  absurd  thing; 
he  turned  his  face  towards  the  canvas,  and  wept. 

The  car  left  its  sick  men  at  a  casualty  clearing  station 
in  Charleroi.  Brent  had  a  vague  impression  of  a  great 
red  brick  building  glooming  up  into  the  murk  of  a  winter 
night,  of  boots  clattering  on  tiled  floors,  of  many  voices, 
and  of  people  who  would  keep  moving  about.  He  was 
irritable,  a  blazing  mass  of  physical  discomfort,  slipping 
over  the  edge  of  sanity  into  delirium.  Two  orderlies  came 
and  carried  his  stretcher  into  a  ward.  He  was  laid  on  a 
bed,  and  two  other  orderlies  started  to  undress  him. 

Brent  was  struggling  to  get  at  something  that  wag 
buttoned  up  in  the  right  breast  pocket  of  his  tunic.  The 
orderlies  were  trying  to  remove  the  tunic,  and  Brent 
began  to  fight. 

"All  right,  old  chap,  aU  right!" 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  17 

"Here,  leave  that  alone." 

"What's  the  matter  ?" 

"I  want  my  money." 

tfYou  can't  have  money  in  hospital." 

"B y  hell,— give  me " 

"Let  him  have  it,"  said  the  elder  of  the  two  orderlies ; 
'let  the  poor  blighter  have  it.  Shove  it  under  his  pillow. 
'All  right,  old  chap." 

Brent  calmed  down  like  a  child,  but  the  nurse  in  charge 
had  heard  the  scrimmage,  and  came  sailing  up  in  her  grey 
dress  edged  with  red.  She  was  a  fair-haired,  hard-faced 
woman,  with  thin,  clean-cut  features,  her  eyes  set  too 
close  together,  and  little  irritable  lines  crimping  her  mouth. 

"What's  all  this  noise?" 

Then  a  strange  thing  happened  to  Brent.  He  sat  up 
in  the  bed,  staring  at  the  woman  with  eyes  of  anger  and 
of  horror. 

"What's  she  doing  here?  Take  her  away — take  her 
away,  or  I'll— I'll  cut  her  blasted  throat!" 

The  nurse  screwed  up  her  eyes  at  him,  and  backed 
away. 

"He's  delirious,"  said  one  of  the  orderlies;  "lie  down, 
old  chap." 

Brent  made  a  sort  of  futile  grab  in  the  direction  of  the 
nurse. 

"Let  me  .  .  .  She's  a  devil!" 

The  nurse  walked  away  down  the  ward  with  the  de- 
tached dignity  of  a  woman  whose  professional  soul  moved 
calmly  through  the  world  of  sickness  and  of  words,  and 
Brent  fell  back  on  his  pillows. 

"What's  she  doing  here,"  he  kept  saying;  "why  can't 
they  let  me  alone  ?" 

Paul  Brent  came  very  near  death  in  that  hospital  at 
Charleroi.  Influenza  passed  into  broncho-pneumonia,  and 
for  days  he  lay  there  in  a  quiet  stupor  with  bluish  lips 
and  a  grey  face.  He  was  just  so  much  pulp,  not  caring 
whether  he  lived  or  whether  he  died,  and  capable  of  but 
two  semi-intelligent  mental  reflexes,  the  turning  of  his 


18  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

face  to  the  wall  when  the  yellow-haired  nurse  came  near, 
and  the  insinuating  of  a  flabby  hand  under  his  pillow  to 
make  sure  that  those  German  notes  were  there.  He  oc- 
cupied a  corner  bed,  and  sometimes  there  was  a  red 
screen  round  it.  His  neighbour  in  the  next  bed  nicknamed 
him  "Arthur,"  and  told  everybody  that  he  was  "a  bit 
balmy." 

But  Brent's  illness  passed,  and  he  lay  there  hour  by 
hour,  watching  life,  and  beginning  to  react  and  to  think. 

He  saw  the  high,  bare,  yellow  walls,  the  rows  of  beds 
with  red  quilts,  the  scrubbed  floor,  the  canvas-shoed  or- 
derlies, the  nurse,  the  doctor  with  "gig-lamps"  and  a  bald 
head,  the  other  men  who  dozed  and  chattered,  or  read 
magazines  and  books  and  letters  from  home.  Some  of  the 
men  wrote  letters,  and  Brent's  neighbour  offered  him  a 
field  postcard. 

"What  about  the  missis,  Arthur?" 

"Haven't  got  one,"  said  Brent. 

The  red  screen  annoyed  him.  There  was  something 
irritating  in  the  colour,  a  vague  suggestion  of  officialdom, 
red  tape,  tyranny.  Brent  asked  to  have  it  taken  away. 
He  spent  most  of  his  time  staring  straight  up  at  the  ceil- 
ing, and  at  a  black  smudge  of  cobweb  in  the  corner  where 
the  chimney  jutted  out.  The  dirty  whiteness  of  the  ceiling 
was  restful ;  he  saw  pictures  on  it,  pictures  that  helped  him 
to  think.  There  was  no  pattern  on  the  ceiling ;  it  was  like 
a  fresh  sheet,  a  clean  piece  of  canvas  upon  which  Brent 
could  paint  what  he  pleased ;  and  lying  through  those  long 
days  he  worked  out  his  pictures  on  the  plaster,  and  under- 
neath them  was  written  the  word,  "Escape." 

He  realized  that  he  would  have  to  lose  himself  again, 
for  the  Machine  had  reclaimed  him  and  would  pass  him 
with  stupid  efficiency  on  its  Trucker  system  to  some  place 
where  he  would  be  sorted  out  and  railed  back  to  England. 
He  began  to  live  in  fear  of  being  recognized  by  some 
chance  friend.  Even  the  blond-haired  nurse's  absurd  like- 
ness to  that  other  woman  who  had  died  in  England  still 
roused  in  Brent  an  elemental  antipathy  and  a  fierce  alarm. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  19 

He  sulked,  and  turned  over  into  the  blind  corner  when- 
ever she  came  near  his  bed. 

"What  is  the  matter  to-day,  Beckett?" 

Her  voice  was  an  echo  of  that  other  woman's  voice, 
a  metallic  voice  that  attacked.  Brent's  back  remained 
churlishly  on  the  defensive. 

"Don't  want  to  be  bothered— that's  all" 


IV 

BEBITT  was  convalescent,  and  as  his  strength  returned, 
his  restlessness  returned  with  it.  He  was  allowed  out  in. 
the  hospital  grounds,  where  he  trudged  about  with  the 
idea  of  getting  himself  fit,  and  feeling  like  an  animal  in  a 
cage,  and  always  afraid  of  meeting  some  disastrously  in- 
opportune friend.  He  had  glimpses  of  Charleroi,  that 
hack  and  gray  mining  town  with  its  slag-heaps  and  smoke 
and  its  air  of  shabby  sumptuousness.  There  were  women 
in  Charleroi,  swarthy  little  Belgian  women,  shops  full  of 
luxurious  things  at  luxurious  prices,  the  glitter  of 
jewellery,  the  glare  of  electric  light,  Belgian  flags,  trams, 
red  wine,  pavements  where  a  man  could  loiter  and  catch 
the  smell  of  fleur-de-trefle  in  a  woman's  clothes.  Charleroi 
made  one  think  of  the  sallow  face,  the  lowering  cloth  cap, 
and  the  sexual  swagger  of  an  apache. 

"Escape"  was  written  on  Brent's  heart;  and  he  had 
staged  the  first  act  of  the  advemture  at  Charleroi.  He 
knew  that  the  day  of  his  discharge  was  drawing  near,  and 
he  might  expect  to  find  himself  handed  to  some  casual 
R.T.O.  who  would  pass  him  down  the  line  to  his  base- 
depot,  and  Brent  had  decided  that  he  must  vanish  before 
such  a  thing  could  happen.  He  did  not  want  to  go  back 
to  England.  He  was  thoroughly  determined  that  he  would 
never  recross  the  Channel. 

Early  in  January  he  received  the  final  stimulus  that 
shocked  him  into  immediate  action.  He  was  wandering 
about  the  hospital  grounds  when  he  saw  a  little  officer 
with  a  florid  and  familiar  face  limping  down  the  path  be- 
tween the  plane  trees.  Brent  was  caught  off  his  guard. 
He  stared,  and  then  swung  round  on  one  heel,  but  the 
officer  boy  stopped. 

20 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  21 

"Hallo;  isn't  it  Brent?— You  were  in  my  platoon?" 

Brent  had  to  face  it  out. 

"So  I  was,  sir." 

"I  got  knocked  out  just  before  the  retreat  What  hap- 
pened to  you  ?" 

"Prisoner,"  said  Brent. 

"Been  sick,  have  you  ?" 

"Flue,  sir,  and  pneumonia.  I'm  all  right  now.  I  ex- 
pect to  be  discharged  in  a  day  or  two." 

The  officer  boy  shook  Brent's  hand,  feeling  himself 
half  a  civilian  and  on  the  edge  of  demobilization.  Besides, 
Brent  had  always  been  a  gentlemanly  chap. 

"Well,  good  luck." 

"Good  luck  to  you,  sir,"  said  Brent. 

That  incident  gave  the  necessary  flick  to  his  decision. 
Men  who  were  ripe  for  discharge  were  allowed  out  on 
pass  into  Charleroi,  and  Brent  got  his  pass  that  evening ; 
it  was  dated  for  the  following  day.  The  N.C.O.  in  charge 
of  the  convalescent  "wing"  was  a  far  more  human  person 
than  the  yellow-haired  nurse. 

So  Paul  Brent  went  down  into  Charleroi  on  a  grey 
January  morning,  with  the  thrill  of  an  adventure  in  his 
blood.  He  had  scrounged  a  couple  of  tins  of  bully  beef 
and  a  pocketful  of  biscuits,  his  reserve  ration  for  the  road. 
"Escape"  was  in  the  air.  The  trams  clanged  it,  the  shops 
were  ready  to  help  in  the  conspiracy :  the  crowded  streets 
made  Brent  think  of  a  dirty,  commercialized  but  fascinat- 
ing Baghdad.  He  began  to  feel  himself  part  of  this  con- 
tinental crowd  and  no  English  soldier  numbered  and 
labelled  for  an  immediate  return  to  some  niche  in  that 
damned  temple  of  Monotony,  the  Industrialism  of  Eng- 
land. He  was  a  little  Haroun  al  Raschid  wandering  as  he 
pleased  in  this  city  of  adventure. 

Brent's  first  business  was  to  change  that  German 
money,  for  it  would  be  no  use  to  him  on  the  road.  He 
found  a  jeweller  and  goldsmith's  that  was  also  a  Bureau 
de  Change,  and  they  took  a  thousand  of  his  German  marks 
and  gave  him  French  notes  in  exchange.  Brent  thought 


22  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

it  wise  to  spread  the  transaction  over  a  varied  surface. 
He  tried  a  Belgian  bank,  and  came  out  with  six  hundred 
francs  in  French  paper.  A  second  Bureau  de  Change 
converted  the  bulk  of  the  remainder.  Then  Brent  went 
shopping. 

The  first  thing  that  he  bought  was  a  carpet-bag  with 
"black  leather  handles,  and  he  bought  it  at  a  little  shop 
in  a  shabby  side  street.  This  magasin  sold  workmen's 
clothes. 

A  fat  Belgian  woman,  with  a  moustache  and  over- 
flowing cheeks  and  chin,  showed  some  surprise  when  he 
asked  the  price  of  a  pair  of  brown  velvet  trousers. 

Brent  laughed,  and  became  confidential. 

"We  make  what  we  call  a  stage-play,  madame,  a  con- 
cert of  varieties.  The  war  is  over;  it  is  necessary  for  us 
to  be  amused." 

"Clothes  are  very  dear,  monsieur." 

"We  English  have  plenty  of  money.  At  home — now 
— in  England — what  would  you  think  I  am  ?" 

Madame  scrutinized  him  with  little  black  eyes  half 
hidden  between  bladders  of  fat. 

"Tiens!— how  should  I  know?" 

"I  own  three  cotton  mills  and  fifty  houses.  But  in 
the  war  I  was  just  this." 

She  became  very  ready  to  oblige  him,  and  Brent  asked 
her  advice. 

"I  am  to  be  an  apache,  madame.  A  pair  of  velveteen 
breeches. — What  next  ?" 

"A  cloth  cap,  monsieur." 

"Yes." 

"And  a  coat — a  black  coat,  and  a  scarf  to  go  round 
your  neck." 

"Excellent.  I  will  do  it  thoroughly  and  have  a  foreign 
shirt,  also  a  leather  belt." 

He  packed  the  things  into  the  carpet-bag,  paid  madame 
and  asked  to  be  allowed  to  leave  the  bag  there  behind 
the  counter. 

"I  will  return  later." 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  23 

"Certainly,  monsieur." 

Brent  had  brought  a  pack  with  him,  and  he  had  other 
things  to  buy,  details  of  the  adventure  that  he  had  worked 
out  while  he  was  lying  sick  in  bed  and  seeing  pictures  on 
the  ceiling.  The  list  included  matches,  a  few  candles, 
some  tinned  food,  cigarettes,  a  pair  of  civilian  boots,  a 
woollen  vest,  soap,  a  sponge,  a  comb,  and  six  inches  of 
tri-colour  ribbon.  He  had  a  meal  at  an  obscure  res- 
taurant, and  the  meal  included  a  bottle  of  red  wine  that 
cost  him  thirty  francs.  He  drank  to  the  health  of  the 
adventure. 

A  winter  dusk  was  falling  over  Charleroi  when  Brent 
returned  to  the  shop  where  he  had  left  his  bag.  The  wine 
had  made  him  merry,  and  he  wasted  ten  minutes  in  a  gal- 
lant little  gossip  with  the  lady  of  the  flowing  chin.  It 
would  be  unwise  to  appear  to  be  in  a  hurry;  your  true 
artist  is  never  furtive  nor  a  sloven  in  his  manners. 

"Au  revoir,  madame." 

"Au  revoir,  monsieur  1' apache." 

Brent  laughed. 

"I'll  try  the  costume  to-night  and  see  how  the  boys 
like  it." 

He  went  boldly  through  Charleroi,  carrying  that  carpet- 
bag for  all  the  world  to  see — but  avoiding  street  corners 
where  he  might  meet  some  inquisitive  military  policeman. 
The  bag  and  its  contents  were  explainable,  but  the  ex- 
planation might  prove  embarrassing  when  the  hospital 
authorities  reported  him  missing.  He  came  without 
adventure  to  the  western  outskirts  of  Charleroi,  still  warm 
with  that  good  red  wine.  A  few  stars  winked  at  him  be- 
tween the  houses,  and  above  the  dark  slag-heaps  and  the 
still  darker  hills. 

In  the  lane  at  the  back  of  a  railway  embankment,  a 
lane  that  appeared  to  end  in  all  the  cabbage  patches  of  a 
miners'  suburb,  Brent  found  the  "green  room"  of  his 
dreams.  It  was  a  tin  shed  or  shelter  with  no  door,  where 
someone  had  once  stored  vegetables  and  tools.  Brent 
took  possession,  lit  one  of  his  candles,  and  carried  out  a 


24  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

rapid  change.    He  discarded  everything  English  save  his 
greatcoat,  socks  and  boots. 

There  was  a  big  ditch  at  the  back  of  the  shed,  full  of 
sooty-looking  water.  Brent  crammed  his  tunic,  trousers, 
puttees,  shirt  and  cap  into  his  pack,  added  two  heavy 
stones,  and  sank  the  whole  caboodle  in  the  ditch.  Return- 
ing to  the  hut  he  completed  the  metamorphosis  by  thread- 
ing the  bit  of  tri-colour  ribbon  into  his  buttonhole  and 
tying  it  in  a  bow.  An  old  rake  handle  provided  him  with 
a  stick.  He  ran  the  end  of  it  through  the  handles  of  the 
carpet-bag,  hoisted  it  over  his  shoulder,  and  launched  out 
into  the  unknown. 


PAUI,  Busm?  tramped  it  through  Solre  le  Chateau  and 
Sars  Poteries  to  Avesnes,  winning  his  food  from  the  Eng- 
lish he  passed  upon  the  road,  for  there  is  no  kinder  hearted 
soul  on  earth  than  the  plain  Englishman  when  his  gen- 
erosity is  challenged.  Paul  played  the  part  of  the  French 
civilian  deported  from  a  captured  village  early  in  the  war, 
and  the  men  in  khaki  whom  he  met  supplied  him  with 
food,  and  even  shared  with  him  their  precious  cigarettes. 

Paul  remained  shy  of  the  larger  villages  and  towns. 
Sometimes  he  stopped  at  a  farm-house  or  cottage  and 
was  given  hot  coffee  fresh  from  the  blue  pot  on  the  stove. 
He  was  a  little  nervous  at  first  of  his  adopted  lingo,  and 
a  pretended  deafness  helped  him  when  he  was  posed. 
But  these  French  folk  accepted  him,  and  were  touchingly 
kind.  He  slept  in  their  barns  and  sometimes  in  a  bed, 
spending  the  evening  sitting  with  the  family  round  the 
kitchen  stove,  a  rather  silent  and  solemn  man  with  many 
memories  in  his  eyes. 

A  very  gentle  mood  had  fallen  upon  Brent.  He  was 
marching  away  from  defeat,  trudging  step  by  step  from 
his  own  past,  that  past  that  seemed  so  full  of  sordid  yet 
pathetic  futilities.  He  found  his  heart  going  out  to  chil- 
dren, dogs,  and  the  poor  old  wrinkled  women  who  had 
starved  so  bravely  for  four  years.  Often  he  shared  his  food 
with  the  cottagers,  the  bully  beef  and  jam  and  biscuits 
he  won  upon  the  road. 

A  man  who  has  tasted  the  full  bitterness  of  failure 

looks  eagerly,  almost  incredulously  at  the  gleam  in  the 

sky  that  symbolizes  a  new  hope.     Brent  felt  that  he  was 

escaping  from  under  a  thundercloud,  and  that  the  edge  of 

25 


26  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

it  was  behind  him.  He  had  known  that  emptiness  of  the 
stomach,  that  sense  of  having  fallen  through  himself  into 
a  mood  of  cynical  apathy  and  tragic  surrender,  when  a 
man  wonders  whether  he  shall  end  his  life  or  struggle  on, 
whether  his  dead  self-respect  is  worth  carrying  upon  his 
shoulders. 

"That  damned  fool  Brent !  Had  his  chance  and  missed 
it." 

But  Brent  knew  that  his  own  incorrigible  good-nature 
had  brought  him  to  bankruptcy.  He  had  trusted  men, 
other  men  who  had  lived  to  make  money,  and  he  had  been 
astonished  when  they  had  torn  him  asunder  and  used 
him  both  as  a  scapegoat  and  as  a  victim.  His  own  wife 
had  never  forgiven  him  for  the  catastrophe.  She,  too,  had 
been  greedy.  Brent  knew  that  money  was  at  the  bottom 
of  all  the  harlotry,  the  commercial  treachery,  and  the  fierce 
physical  greed  of  a  great  part  of  modern  life.  He  had 
found  War  far  less  savage  and  contemptible  than  the 
assassination  of  souls  that  a  rich  Peace  encourages. 

Other  men  had  scrambled  over  his  body,  and,  now  that 
the  war  had  set  him  on  his  feet  again,  he  was  possessed 
by  a  great  yearning  to  begin  life  over  again,  to  make  some 
success  of  the  years  that  were  to  come.  He  wanted  to 
feel  the  grip  of  a  new  self-respect,  the  stiff  back  of  a  new 
manhood.  He  wanted  to  think  that  he  mattered,  that 
there  was  yet  some  measure  of  rich  blood  in  him  that  could 
make  some  other  creature  happy.  He  was  curiously 
humble  over  it,  boyish  and  innocent.  And  yet  as  he  foot- 
slogged  it  along  those  muddy  winter  roads,  a  pilgrim  in 
search  of  his  second  chance,  he  became  possessed  by  a 
vague  yet  spiritual  conviction  that  he  would  find  that 
chance  somewhere  in  poor,  battered,  devastated  France. 

It  was  on  the  road  from  Avesnes  to  Maroilles  that  Brent 
met  the  girl  with  the  black  shawl.  It  was  no  more  than 
an  incident  in  his  pilgrimage,  but  an  incident  that  flushed 
him  with  the  warm  red  wine  of  humanism. 

He  was  sitting  on  the  butt  of  a  broken  telegraph  pole 
when  the  girl  came  along  the  road.  She  was  pretty  and 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  27 

dark  and  rather  slender  for  a  French  peasant,  and  Brent 
was  aware  of  her  as  an  eager  and  hurrying  figure  with  a 
black  shawl  folded  over  her  shoulders,  and  the  end  of  it 
held  so  as  to  cover  her  mouth.  She  came  quickly  towards 
him.  Her  eyes  were  big  and  bright  with  hope,  the  des- 
perate hope  that  her  man  had  come  at  last. 

Brent  saw  her  falter.  Then  the  light  died  out  of  her 
eyes.  Her  face  seemed  to  grow  more  sallow,  and  very 
sad.  Yet  she  approached  him,  smiling  with  a  sudden  pity, 
a  compassionate  friendliness  that  warmed  to  all  those 
lonely  ones  who  returned. 

"You  are  going  home,  monsieur?" 

Brent  raised  his  cloth  cap. 

"If  I  find  a  home." 

She  sighed,  dropped  the  shawl  from  her  mouth,  and 
sat  down  beside  him.  Brent  felt  that  she  had  suffered 
very  much;  she  looked  ill,  her  soft  eyes  were  growing 
old  with  watching. 

"I  thought  you  might  be  my  Jean,"  she  said,  with 
the  simplicity  of  one  who  had  lived  in  days  of  great 
sadness. 

"I  am  sorry,"  said  Brent,  "has  he  not  come  home  yet  ?" 

Her  eyes  looked  far  away.  The  fingers  of  her  left 
hand  pulled  at  a  splinter  that  stood  up  from  the  round 
bulk  of  the  pole. 

"Four  years.  Yes,  it  is  a  long  time.  And  our  child 
died — died  of  starvation.  For  six  months  I  have  had  no 
letter." 

"I  am  sorry,"  said  Brent. 

She  began  to  question  him — for  his  presence  there 
seemed  to  give  her  hope — and  the  lies  that  he  had  to  tell 
her  turned  sour  in  Brent's  mouth. 

"You  have  come  a  long  way,  monsieur,  perhaps  from 
the  centre  of  Germany?" 

"Yes,  a  long  way.     I  was  in  Germany." 

"It  may  be  that  you  met  my  Jean  ?  Jean  Bart  is  his 
name,  a  tall  man  with  thoughtful  blue  eyes  and  a  scar  on 
his  forehead." 


28  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

"I  am  afraid  not,  madame.  But  there  must  be  hun- 
dreds of  persons  who  have  not  yet  come  home." 

"You  think  so,  monsieur?" 

"Many  are  in  hospital.    Some  were  in  Russia." 

She  smiled  bravely. 

"Oh,  I  do  not  give  up  hope.  Some  day  he  will  return. 
I  pray  to  God  each  night  and  morning,  when  I  work 
And  when  I  eat." 

"Please  God  he  will,"  said  Brent,  and  found  that  he 
had  uttered  a  prayer. 

The  girl  insisted  on  Paul  going  back  to  her  home,  a 
little  red  farm  among  poplars  on  the  green  slope  of  a  hill 
above  the  windings  of  a  river.  Jean's  father  and  mother 
lived  there,  two  quiet  people  to  whom  life  had  left  but  little 
to  say.  They  were  very  kind  to  Paul,  and  he  passed  the 
night  at  the  farm,  sleeping  in  a  feather  bed  in  a  narrow 
room  whose  window  showed  him  the  stars  hanging  in  the 
bare  branches  of  an  old  apple  tree.  There  was  the  smell 
of  home  about  the  place,  the  home  of  the  Frenchman  who 
had  not  returned.  Brent  felt  that  the  little  house  watched 
and  listened  with  every  window,  its  gables  cocked  like 
the  ears  of  a  dog  waiting  for  its  master. 

Brent  was  touched  by  the  kindness  these  poor  people 
showed  him.  They  sent  him  upon  his  way  with  a  couple 
of  hard-boiled  eggs  and  some  apples  in  his  pockets,  and 
a  sense  of  the  essential  goodness  of  the  humbler  folk  who 
suffer.  The  girl  went  with  him  to  the  gate  opening  upon 
the  road. 

"Bon  voyage." 

Her  soft  eyes  and  her  sadness  put  new  life  into  Brent. 

"May  he  return — very  soon,"  he  said ;  "your  husband : 
perhaps  I  have  brought  you  good  luck." 

She  watched  Brent  march  off  down  the  road,  and  his 
going  made  her  yearn  all  the  more  deeply  for  the  other 
man  who  had  not  returned. 

"Four  years,"  he  said,  "four  years  of  his  youtn — and 
•of  mine." 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  29 

Yet  Brent's  words  might  have  be«n  prophetic,  for  Jean 
Bart  came  home  that  night 

Brent  tramped  on  through  Landrecies  and  Le  Gateau, 
those  tragic  towns,  half  alive,  half  dead.  It  was  when  he 
came  to  the  village  of  Maretz,  lying  all  red  and  quiet  under 
a  flat  grey  sky,  that  Brent  felt  the  new  phase  of  his  adven- 
ture, even  as  a  man  feels  the  nearness  of  the  sea.  He  was 
on  the  edge  of  the  wilderness,  fifty  rolling  miles  of  grey- 
green  desolation  upon  which  a  few  broken  villages  floated 
like  derelicts.  Brent  spent  three  days  in  Maretz,  living 
with  an  old  French  couple  in  their  cottage  on  the  road  to 
Serain,  very  busy  as  a  forager  and  a  collector  of  hard 
rations.  He  had  the  wilderness  before  him,  a  wilderness 
where  he  could  count  on  neither  water  nor  food.  But  Brent 
left  Maretz  rather  suddenly.  He  was  watching  a  party 
of  German  prisoners  working  at  the  red  mountain  of  rub- 
bish that  had  been  the  church  when  he  became  aware  of 
a  man  in  khaki  standing  a  little  to  one  side  and  staring 
at  him  intently. 

Brent  knew  the  man,  a  corporal  who  had  served  in 
the  same  battalion.  He  braced  himself  to  the  crisis,  gave 
the  man  stare  for  stare,  a  blank  look  of  curiosity,  said 
something  in  French,  and  strolled  on.  Brent  did  not  turn 
his  head  to  see  whether  the  corporal  was  still  interested 
and  suspicious,  but  he  went  straight  to  the  cottage  on 
the  road  to  Serain,  collected  his  bag  and  stick,  and  footed 
it  out  of  Maretz. 

That  night  he  slept  in  a  half-ruined  cottage  at  Beau- 
revoir.  The  morning  brought  him  luck,  and  a  ride  on  a 
lorry  that  was  travelling  to  Roisel,  and  at  Roisel  he  won  a 
hot  dinner  at  the  cook-house  of  a  Labour  Company.  Things 
were  going  well.  The  lift  on  the  lorry  had  saved  him 
many  miles  of  tramping  and  much  food.  That  evening 
he  reached  Peronne,  and  saw  the  brown  and  battered 
town  outlined  against  a  February  sunset,  and  all  the  blue 
Waters  of  its  valley  full  of  the  reflection  of  flushed  clouds 
and  gouts  of  gold.  Brent  found  a  corner  in  Peronne,  a 


30  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

snuggish  corner,  even  though  the  stars  looked  down  on 
him,  and  it  was  in  Peronne  that  he  had  his  vision. 

It  was  a  strangely  vivid  affair,  a  dream  and  yet  perhapa 
more  than  a  dream.  Brent  found  himself  in  Beaucourt, 
standing  in  the  garden  of  the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire  and  look- 
ing at  a  resurrected  Tom  Beckett,  a  Beckett  who  sat  on 
the  heap  of  stones  that  he — Brent — had  thrown  over  the 
burial-place  of  Manon  Latour's  treasure.  Beckett's  boots 
were  muddy,  so  were  his  clothes,  and  his  hair  was  full 
of  blood  and  earth.  Yet  the  face  of  Beckett  was  like 
white  light.  He  sat  and  talked  with  the  intensity  of  a 
man  who  was  fiercely  concerned  in  making  his  meaning 
<jlear,  yet  Brent  could  not  understand  a  word  of  all  that 
his  dear  friend  said.  He  was  conscious  of  effort,  baffle- 
ment, suspense.  He  kept  noticing  the  gap  in  the  upper 
row  of  Beckett's  teeth,  a  gap  that  had  always  made  Brent 
think  of  a  hole  in  a  white  fence.  He  was  astonished  by 
the  discovery  that  he  could  see  Beckett's  heart  beating 
under  his  soiled  tunic,  and  see  it  as  a  reddish  light  that 
waxed  and  waned  with  each  beat,  a  mysterious  and  pal- 
pitating piece  of  glowing  human  flesh.  And  all  the  while, 
Brent  was  trying  to  grasp  what  his  dead  friend  said,  for 
he  was  speaking  to  him,  as  though  he,  Brent,  the  live  man, 
were  in  desperate  need  of  some  human  message. 

"Sweat, — sweat!" 

That  was  the  one  crude,  forcible  and  enigmatic  word 
that  Brent  remembered.  Then  Beckett  smiled  at  him, 
and  vanished  off  the  pile  of  stones  like  a  puff  of  smoke 
dispersed  by  the  wind.  Brent  woke  up  and  stared  at  the 
stars.  He  was  shivering. 

"Beaucourt,"  he  said  like  a  child  repeating  a  lesson; 
"I  have  got  to  go  to  Beaucourt." 


VI 

THESE  had  been  a  slight  frost.  It  was  a  brilliant  Feb- 
ruary morning  with  a  few  rolling  white  clouds  low  in  the 
blue  of  the  western  sky,  and  the  green  earth  was  covered 
with  a  web  of  silver. 

Brent  came  to  Beaucourt  by  the  road  from  Kosieres, 
and  from  the  high  ground  above  the  Bois  du  Hoi  he  could 
look  down  through  the  beech  trees  into  the  valley  where 
Beaucourt  lay.  The  valley  seemed  full  of  yellow  sunlight, 
very  tranquil  and  very  still,  and  Brent  could  hear  the 
stream  falling  over  the  dam  by  the  mill.  Beaucourt  seemed 
to  sleep  the  sleep  of  the  dead.  There  was  no  smoke,  no 
movement,  no  human  sound,  and  Brent  stood  awed  by  the 
beauty  of  its  desolation. 

For  beautiful  it  was — even  as  a  ruin.  There  had  been 
but  little  fighting  at  Beaucourt;  it  had  been  taken  and 
passed,  retaken  and  passed  again,  and  yet  Brent  could  see 
that  there  was  hardly  a  whole  roof  left  in  the  village. 
The  church  had  lost  half  its  steeple,  and  through  the  win- 
dows of  the  chateau  the  purple  of  the  woods  showed  like 
a  curtain.  Beaucourt  was  a  shell,  a  village  of  squared 
walls,  gaunt  gables,  and  a  spidery  web  of  blackened  raf- 
ters, when  there  were  any  rafters  at  all.  Fires  had  blazed 
here  and  there,  and  all  about  the  church  and  the  cross- 
roads the  English  shells  had  fallen  heavily.  Many  of 
the  little  white  houses  had  had  the  plaster  shaken  from 
the  walls,  and  showed  up  as  masses  of  intricate  timber 
work,  pathetically  naked,  mere  skeletons  from  whose  bones 
the  flesh  had  fallen.  The  woods  had  suffered  but  little. 
The  thickets  of  pines  and  spruces  beyond  the  church  stood 
up  green  and  clear.  Very  few  shell-holes  spotted  the  fields 
31 


32  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

and  orchards,  nor  had  Beaucourt  that  indescribably  sordid 
look  of  a  village  that  has  become  a  refuse-heap,  a  kitchen- 
midden  of  the  war. 

Brent  went  down  into  Beaucourt  with  a  feeling  of 
queer  suspense.  He  was  excited,  conscious  of  a  quickening 
of  the  heart.  Some  sub-conscious  emotion  seemed  to  be 
stirring  in  him,  some  quite  unexplainable  trembling  of  the 
deep  waters  of  his  self.  It  was  not  the  mere  fact  that 
Beckett  was  buried  there,  nor  the  memory  of  Manon's 
treasure,  nor  yet  the  vividness  of  that  fantastic  dream. 
It  may  have  been  that  Beaucourt  had  an  elemental  yet 
spiritual  meaning  for  Brent,  that  it  symbolized  the  unex- 
pectedness of  his  own  past,  and  pointed  with  its  broken 
epire  to  a  sky  that  was  blue  with  the  coming  of  spring. 

Beaucourt  touched  Brent's  heart.  It  was  more  than 
a  ruined  village ;  it  was  a  picture  of  a  broken  life,  a  ques- 
tion mark,  a  half-realized  opportunity. 

Brent  entered  it  by  the  Hue  de  Rosieres.  The  stud 
and  plaster  cottages  here  were  mere  shells — doors,  win- 
dows, woodwork  and  furniture  gone,  the  ceilings  fallen  in, 
the  tiles  from  the  roofs  making  a  red  litter  on  the  ground 
floors.  Brent  found  himself  standing  in  the  triangle  where 
the  Rue  de  Picardie,  the  Rue  Romaine  and  the  Rue  de 
Rosieres  met.  The  stone  house  at  the  corner  had  huge 
holes  in  its  walls,  and  the  stone-capped  well  in  the  centre 
of  the  triangle  still  carried  a  German  inscription  announc- 
ing the  fact  that  the  water  was  fit  to  drink.  Brent  stood 
and  looked  at  the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire,  or  rather  at  the 
ghost  of  it ;  and  pity — pity  for  a  woman— filled  his  heart. 

The  red  roof  had  gone  with  its  quaintly  inquisitive 
dormer  windows.  There  were  two  ragged  shell-holes  in 
the  front  wall,  and  the  gable  ends  and  chimney  stack 
stood  out  bleakly  against  the  blue  of  the  sky.  Hardly  a 
•hred  of  woodwork  remained;  the  house  was  doorless, 
windowless.  The  gates  of  the  yard  gateway  had  gone. 
A  smashed  lime  tree  hung  with  its  head  over  the  wall  of 
the  garden,  its  boughs  trailing  on  the  raised  path. 

"What  a  damned  shame  I"  said  Brent. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  33 

He  had  seen  hundreds  of  mined  houses,  but  somehow 
the  mutilation  of  this  house  of  Manon  Latour's  affected 
him  quite  differently. 

Brent  climbed  on  to  the  path  and  entered  the  cafe". 
He  found  that  much  of  the  rubbish  had  been  cleared  away, 
and  that  someone  had  extemporized  a  shelter  of  corrugated 
iron  in  the  big  kitchen  and  living  room  on  the  left  of  the 
passage.  He  noticed,  too,  that  the  beams  that  had  carried 
the  upper  floor  were  still  in  their  places. 

Brent  put  his  bag  down  on  the  tiled  floor.  The  act 
had  a  quaint  suggestiveness.  He  was  a  traveller,  and  the 
Cafe  de  la  Victoire  stood  with  a  very  open  doorway, 
offering  him  such  hospitality  as  was  left  to  it,  though 
there  was  no  Manon  to  cook  an  omelette  and  make  coffee. 

Then  Brent  went  for  a  stroll.  He  wandered  down  to 
Beckett's  grave  and  found  it  as  a  low  mound  of  weedy 
earth.  The  broken  apple  tree  had  been  cut  up  and  burnt. 
Brent  stood  there  for  some  minutes,  bare-headed,  eyes 
looking  back  into  the  past,  a  sturdy,  square-shouldered 
man  with  a  fresh-coloured  face,  and  a  youthful  moustache 
and  beard.  He  looked  like  a  peasant, — brown,  blue-eyed, 
thoughtful. 

Then  he  went  back  to  Beaucourt. 

Beaucourt  surprised  him.  He  walked  down  the  Rue 
de  Picardie  to  the  Place  de  1'Eglise,  and  saw  nothing  that 
lived,  not  even  a  half  wild  cat.  The  Post  Office,  the 
Hospice,  and  the  Hotel  de  Paris  were  respectable  and 
voiceless  ruins.  The  ecole  was  a  little  less  desolated.  But 
Brent  had  expected  to  find  a  few  people  in  Beaucourt,  a 
few  of  those  indomitable  French  folk  who  had  won  the 
war.  The  village  lay  less  than  ten  miles  from  the  un- 
devastated  country,  yet  Beaucourt  seemed  to  have  been 
side-tracked,  forgotten. 

There  was  one  live  thing  in  Beaucourt  and  Brent 
discovered  it  sitting  on  a  fallen  block  of  stone  by  the 
church,  a  grey  old  man,  grey  as  the  jumble  of  broken 
buttresses  and  fallen  pinnacles,  but  far  more  sad.  He 
seemed  just  a  bit  of  the  broken  stone.  Brent  went  and 


34  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

spoke  to  him,  and  the  old  man  looked  at  Brent  with  eyes 
that  seemed  dead. 

"Good  day,  monsieur.     You  are  all  alone  here?" 

"Yes,  I  am  all  alone,"  said  the  old  man. 

His  voice  was  flat — toneless  and  empty  of  all  emotion. 
It  seemed  to  Brent  that  the  old  Frenchman  was  beyond 
feeling  things.  He  sat  and  munched  a  piece  of  bread; 
he  was  not  interested  in  Brent;  he  was  not  interested  in 
anything.  When  Brent  spoke  to  him  he  answered  like 
a  man  who  had  been  mesmerized. 

"You  have  come  back,  monsieur?" 

"I  walked  twenty  kilometres  this  morning  to  see — that." 

He  pointed  quite  calmly  to  a  little  house  over  the  way, 
a  house  that  had  had  its  face  smashed  in,  a  house  that 
was  almost  unrecognizable.  Brent  felt  a  pang  of  pity, 
yet  there  was  nothing  to  be  said. 

"You  stay  here?" 

"No,  I  walk  another  twenty  kilometres.  That  has  hap- 
pened to  many  people.  Their  hearts  fail  them  when  they 
see  what  has  happened." 

"I  can  understand." 

"The  authorities  order  us  to  go  back — but  can  they  give 
an  old  man  a  new  heart  and  strong  arms  ?  They  speak  of 
help,  but  no  help  comes.  I  blame  nobody ;  we  have  suffered 
BO  much." 

"But  will  no  one  return  ?" 

"Oh,  yes,  we  shall  come  back,"  said  the  old  man,  "but 
we  wait  for  the  spring  to  come,  and  for  food.  Our  roots 
are  here,  I  suppose,  right  under  the  ruins  of  all  those 
houses.  But  it  will  need  courage — courage !" 

He  lit  his  pipe,  got  up,  and  made  ready  for  his  second 
twelve-mile  walk.  Endurance,  a  blind,  patient,  half- 
dazed  endurance,  that  was  what  Brent  saw  in  him,  the 
endurance  that  had  saved  France.  It  was  tragic  and  it 
was  splendid,  and  it  filled  Brent  with  a  feeling  of  deep 
humility. 

"We  young  men  shall  have  to  help  the  others,"  he  said. 

The  Frenchman  gave  him  a  look  of  surprise. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  35 

"Those  are  good  words.  But  I  have  found  it  a  selfish 
world.  Perhaps  it  will  be  a  scramble.  Everybody  will 
be  too  busy." 

And  he  left  Brent  to  think  it  over. 

Paul  returned  to  the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire,  and  it  was  then 
that  he  remembered  that  he  had  not  looked  at  the  place 
where  Manon  Latour  had  buried  her  treasure.  He  went 
out  into  the  garden  and  saw  the  mound  of  stones  had  not 
been  moved.  Nettles  had  grown  up  in  between  the  stones, 
and  the  inference  was  obvious. 

"She  will  come  back,"  was  Brent'a  thought. 

And  he  added : 

"Unless  she  is  dead." 

Brent  felt  hungry.  He  had  carried  a  couple  of  empty 
ammunition  boxes  into  the  kitchen,  one  to  serve  as  a  seat, 
the  other  as  a  table,  when  he  remembered  the  fact  that  his 
water-bottle  was  nearly  empty.  He  went  out  at  once  to 
examine  the  well,  not  liking  the  idea  of  getting  his  water 
from  the  stream.  The  windlass,  chain  and  bucket  had  been 
left  behind,  and  Brent  opened  the  queer  little  iron  gate 
in  the  well-house  and  sent  the  bucket  down  for  a  sample. 
He  heard  it  splash  below,  and  felt  the  suck  of  it  as  it  came 
up  full  at  the  end  of  the  taut  chain.  When  he  lifted  out 
the  bucket  into  the  sunlight  he  found  the  water  looking 
clean  and  wholesome.  Brent  smelt  it,  took  some  in  his 
palm  and  tasted  it.  The  water  had  neither  smell  nor  taste. 

Paul  was  conscious  of  a  pleasant  and  boyish  elation. 
Beaucourt  made  him  think  of  Crusoe's  Island.  It  was  full 
of  the  adventure  of  finding  things ;  it  challenged  a  man's 
wits,  promised  all  sorts  of  surprises.  The  idea  of  trying 
to  live  in  Beaucourt  tickled  the  eternal  boy  in  Brent.  He 
brought  out  a  battered  enamelled  mug  and  plate  from 
his  bag,  sat  himself  down  on  his  ammunition  box,  and 
made  his  first  meal  in  Beaucourt,  tackling  the  inevitable 
corned  beef  and  biscuits  with  the  relish  of  a  clean  hunger. 

Satisfied,  he  lit  his  pipe,  for  he  still  had  a  little  tobacco 
left,  and  carrying  his  box  out  into  the  doorway  he  sat  in 
the  sun  and  meditated.  His  pipe  tasted  good;  the  sky 


36  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

was  blue;  he  felt  warm,  and  his  boots  had  kept  out  the 
mud.  Even  the  ruins  of  Beaucourt  had  a  beauty  of  their 
own,  a  fantastic  unexpectedness,  a  droll  yet  pathetic 
irregularity  of  outline.  These  little  ruined  houses  were 
very  human;  some  had  fallen  in  upon  themselves  and 
stood  huddled  in  utter  dejection;  others  had  the  staring 
eyes  of  despair ;  a  few  still  seemed  to  be  calling  for  help. 
The  village  resembled  a  little  Pompeii,  to  be  explored 
and  dreamed  about,  and  yet  it  differed  from  Pompeii  in 
that  it  was  potentially  alive.  It  struck  Brent  as  being 
rather  odd  and  delightful  that  he  should  be  the  one  and 
only  inhabitant  of  Beaucourt,  a  stranger  taking  a  holiday 
in  this  starlit  and  admirably  ventilated  ruin. 

And  then  the  old  Frenchman's  words  recurred  to  him: 

"We  shall  come  back." 

Brent's  blue  eyes  gave  a  sudden,  interested  gleam. 
He  foresaw  the  return  of  Manon  Latour,  and  he  wondered 
what  she  would  think  of  this  house  of  hers,  what  she  would 
make  of  it. 

Brent  left  his  box,  jumped  down  into  the  roadway, 
and  began  to  examine  the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire  with  an 
intelligently  reconstructive  eye.  There  was  something  of 
the  Jude  in  Brent  Twelve  years  ago  he  had  been  a  job- 
bing builder,  carrying  on  an  obscure  little  business  in  a 
west-country  town,  a  man  who  had  used  the  trowel  and 
the  plumb-line  by  day,  and  read  Maeterlinck,  or  Green's 
"History  of  the  English  People"  or  Montaigne's  Essays  at 
night.  Chance,  rather  than  his  own  inclination,  had 
pushed  him  into  bigger  things,  and  his  marriage  had  dis- 
covered him  seven  years  later  as  the  practical  partner  in 
the  exploitation  of  a  suburban  building  scheme.  He  had 
been  the  owner  of  an  ambitious  wife,  a  car,  and  a  very 
passable  library,  until  other  people's  speculative  cynicisms 
had  brought  him  down  with  a  crash. 

And  now,  he  stood  looking  at  this  French  cafe  with 
the  critical  eyes  of  a  man  who  once  had  worked  with  his 
hands. 

"Yes— if  I  had  the  stuff" 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  37 

The  thought  fired  an  extraordinary  series  of  explosions 
in  Brent's  brain.  He  began  to  walk  up  and  down  with  his 
hands  is  his  pockets,  an  excited  man  who  glanced  from 
time  to  time  at  the  old  red-walled  building,  calculating, 
contriving.  His  pipe  went  out,  but  remained  gripped 
between  his  teeth.  Then  he  re-entered  the  house.  He 
wanted  to  examine  the  inside  of  it,  every  corner  of  it,  even 
the  cellar.  One  of  his  candles  gave  him  the  necessary 
light,  and  in  the  cellar  he  made  a  discovery. 

Some  man  in  the  near  past  had  been  fairly  comfortable 
here.  Brent's  candles  showed  him  a  wire  bed  in  one  corner, 
a  rough  table  with  some  shelves  made  of  ammunition  boxes 
standing  against  the  wall,  and  what  was  of  still  more 
luxurious  significance — a  rusty  but  sound  Canadian  stove 
with  its  flue  pipe  connected  with  the  little  grating  that 
opened  just  above  the  paving  of  the  path.  The  cellar 
was  quite  dry. 

"Well  I'm  damned!"  said  Brent;  "here's  my  new 
billet." 


vn 

BBENT  went  upstairs  again,  and  sat  down  like  Crusoe  to 
consider  the  situation. 

A  billet  in  Beaucourt  postulated  the  quest  of  a  number 
of  elemental  necessities.  Brent  tore  the  white  wood  lid 
off  the  box  on  which  he  was  sitting,  produced  a  pencil, 
and  began  the  creation  of  an  inventory  much  like  an  an- 
cient scribe  dabbing  his  cuneiform  letters  upon  a  tablet  of 
clay. 

At  the  top  of  the  board  he  printed : — 

NECESSITIES 

Under  this  heading  he  wrote : 

Food. 

Water. 

Wood  for  Stove. 

Kettle  or  Saucepan. 

Basin  to  wash  in. 

He  headed  the  second  list : 

LUXURIES 

Blankets. 

A  palliasse. 

Furniture. 

Plates  and  cups. 

Green  food.    What  price  Scurry 

KB.  Try  nettle  tops. 
Milk. 
A  looking-glass. 

So  much  for  the  paper  work.     Brent  bored  a  hole  in 
the  board,  using  his  jack-knife,  and  hung  his  inventory  to 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  39 

A  nail  on  the  kitchen  wall.  He  was  going  to  exploit 
Beaucourt  in  a  thoroughly  business-like  way,  and  he  was 
as  full  of  excitement  as  a  boy. 

Brent  took  the  first  item — food.  He  had  noticed 
some  sandbags  on  the  wire  bed  in  the  cellar,  and  he  fetched 
one  of  them  and  started  on  the  adventure.  The  last 
troops  to  occupy  Beaucourt  had  been  Colonials,  and  they 
had  left  Beaucourt  in  that  open-handed,  casual  and  spa- 
cious way  of  theirs,  not  troubling  to  carry  away  what  they 
would  be  supplied  with  on  the  morrow.  Brent  began  by 
exploring  the  big  stone  house  across  the  road  and  found 
nothing  that  was  of  any  use  to  him  until  he  poked  an  in- 
quisitive head  into  what  had  been  a  wash-house  or  scullery, 
a  place  that  was  weather  proof  and  had  been  used  as  a 
kitchen.  Brent  had  struck  oil.  He  saw  a  pile  of  bully- 
beef  tins  in  a  corner,  and  on  a  shelf  he  found  two  unopened 
cartons  of  jam  and  one  of  marmalade,  a  tin  half  full  of 
sugar,  and  two  tins  of  Ideal  Milk. 

"Blessed  be  all  Cobbers!" 

Brent  salved  seventeen  tins  of  corned  beef.  He  carried 
the  hoard  over  to  the  cafe,  and  decided  that  the  cellar  was. 
the  only  safe  place  for  his  store.  He  made  quite  a  game 
of  stacking  his  provisions  on  the  rough  shelves,  reflecting 
that  these  shelves  ought  to  hold  books,  but  that  books 
were  of  no  use  in  Beaucourt. 

He  adventured  out  again,  and  tried  the  ecole  in  the  Rue 
de  Picardie,  glimpsing  it  as  a  fairly  well-preserved  place 
that  had  been  patched  with  corrugated  iron.  The  ecole 
had  two  habitable  rooms  on  the  ground  floor,  rooms  that 
astonished  Brent  with  a  display  of  furniture,  an  old 
tapestry-covered  arm-chair  with  the  stuffing  bulging  out 
of  it,  a  dining-room  table,  a  wash-hand  stand  that  had 
been  used  as  a  buffet,  some  wooden  chairs,  even  a  pic- 
ture or  two.  Brent  began  to  realize  the  possibilities  of 
Beaucourt. 

But  these  were  luxuries,  and  Brent  was  specializing  in 
a  supply  of  food.  The  ecole  had  been  an  officers'  mess, 
and  in  the  room  that  had  been  used  as  a  kitchen  he  found 


40  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

an  old  saucepan  that  looked  capable  of  holding  water,  a 
mess-tin,  and  a  spoon.  The  spoon  was  the  colour  of  lead, 
but  polish  would  have  been  superfluous,  and  Brent 
pocketed  the  spoon.  In  the  brick  coal-house  at  the  back  of 
the  ecole  he  salved  two  unopened  tins  of  army  biscuits, 
and  a  canister  full  of  tea.  The  tea  was  a  trifle  mouldy, 
but  Brent  had  an  idea  that  he  could  dry  it  over  the  stove. 

The  cellar  of  the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire  began  to  look  like 
a  ration-store,  and  Brent  attacked  the  other  necessaries  on 
his  list.  An  army  pick  and  a  pile  of  ammunition  boxes 
in  the  backyard  provided  him  with  unlimited  firewood; 
he  carried  armfuls  of  it  down  into  the  cellar  and  stacked  it 
by  the  stove.  He  had  appropriated  the  bucket  from  the 
well,  lest  the  next  comer  should  take  it  away.  The  es- 
sentials were  shaping  splendidly,  but  Brent  was  too  full 
of  enthusiasm  to  play  at  lighting  the  stove.  He  had 
noticed  that  all  sorts  of  wreckage  had  been  thrown  into 
the  gardens  at  the  backs  of  the  houses.  He  had  seen 
iron  bedsteads  there,  the  remains  of  mattresses,  broken 
crockery,  rusty  stoves,  garden  tools,  coffee  grinders,  old 
buckets,  enamelled  pans,  and  God  knows  what.  He  went 
out  like  a  rag-and-bone  picker  and  explored  those  gardens. 
Even  a  very  superficial  search  among  the  weeds  and  rub- 
bish sent  him  back  with  two  good  plates,  a  cup,  a  wine- 
glass, and  a  pewter  coffee-pot.  Moreover  he  had  seen  a 
couple  of  blankets  and  a  ground  sheet  dangling  in  a  cottage, 
where  they  had  been  nailed  up  to  keep  out  the  draught. 

Brent  carried  the  crockery,  glass  and  plate  to  his  billet, 
and  returned  for  those  blankets.  He  had  expected  to  find 
them  rotten,  ready  to  fall  to  pieces  when  touched — but 
an  army  blanket  has  a  toughness  of  fibre  and  a  vitality 
that  has  made  it  salvable  when  soaked  in  liquid  mud. 
These  blankets  were  in  a  very  fair  condition,  and  Brent 
handled  them  with  respect  and  affection.  An  ex-soldier 
is  not  too  fastidious — but  Paul  decided  to  give  the  blankets 
a  good  soaking  in  the  stream,  even  to  use  a  little  of  hia 
precious  soap  on  them,  and  to  hang  them  near  the  stove. 

The  later  the  hour  the  better  the  deed.     H«  went 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE  41 

down  to  the  stream  and  found  the  very  place  where  the 
poorer  women  of  Beaucourt  had  washed  their  linen,  a  place 
where  a  little  platform  of  flat  stones  jutted  into  the  water. 
The  sun  was  a  great  red  ball  behind  the  beeches  of  the 
Bois  du  Renard  when  Brent  returned  to  the  Cafe  de  la 
Victoire,  lit  his  candle  in  the  cellar  and  prepared  for  a 
snug  night. 

He  hung  one  of  the  wet  blankets  across  the  cellar 
doorway,  using  the  length  of  telephone  wire  that  had  been 
left  there  by  the  previous  occupant.  Then  Brent  made 
trial  of  the  Canadian  stove,  and  having  neither  straw  nor 
paper,  he  cut  shavings  and  splinters  with  his  jack-knife, 
and  contrived  to  get  the  fire  alight  with  the  expenditure 
of  a  single  match.  Matches  were  going  to  be  precious; 
he  had  five  boxes.  The  stove  behaved  like  a  gentleman, 
neither  smoking  nor  sulking,  but  consuming  with  relish 
the  wood  that  Brent  fed  into  it,  and  developing  a  hearty 
and  convivial  glow.  Paul  crowned  it  with  a  saucepanful 
of  water,  and  having  previously  washed  out  the  pewter 
coffee-pot  and  put  a  palmful  of  the  Australian  tea  into  it, 
he  opened  a  tin  of  milk  with  the  point  of  his  jack-knife 
and  sat  down  to  watch  the  water  boil. 

Brent  enjoyed  that  meal  more  than  he  had  enjoyed 
anything  for  a  very  long  time.  He  pulled  the  table  up  in 
front  of  the  stove,  and  felt  completely  and  cheerfully  at 
home.  He  had  a  cup  to  drink  from,  white  plates  for  his 
meat,  biscuits  and  jam;  the  tea  tasted  good — better  than 
he  had  expected.  And  it  was  hot! 

"Some  billet,"  he  reflected. 

The  washing  up  could  be  left  till  the  morning,  and  feel- 
ing warm  both  within  and  without,  he  filled  up  the  stove, 
lit  a  pipe,  and  considered  his  new  home.  A  soldier  learna 
to  see  the  beauty  of  comfort  in  some  shack  that  would  make 
a  civilian  shiver,  and  to  Brent  this  cellar  of  his  was  quite 
beautiful.  The  rusty  old  stove  glowed  like  bronze.  The 
flame  from  the  candle  and  the  glow  from  the  hot  iron  lit 
Tip  the  white  stone  vaulting  of  the  cellar;  and  the  well- 
out  stones  and  the  neat  pointing  in  between  them  pleased 


42  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE 

the  eye  of  a  craftsman.  The  tea-cup,  glinting  white,  had 
little  pink  roses  on  it.  The  pewter  coffee-pot  struck  a  note 
of  luxury.  Brent  looked  almost  gloatingly  at  his  store  of 
food  on  "the  shelves.  He  took  down  some  of  the  tins  of 
bully  beef  and  examined  them.  They  were  a  little  rusty 
here  and  there,  but  no  sign  of  being  "blown."  He  had 
tested  the  meat  from  one  of  them  at  tea. 

Again,  he  blessed  the  Australians. 

And  then  his  thoughts  turned  to  less  material  things. 
He  began  to  dream,  while  the  smoke  of  his  pipe  drifted 
up  towards  the  little  grating  where  the  stove-pipe  met  the 
outer  air.  He  sat  with  knees  spread  about  the  stove,  his 
body  leaning  forward,  his  hands  outstretched  to  the 
warmth,  a  very  simple  and  primitive  man,  a  man  who  could 
dream  dreams. 

"Supposing  I  stay  here?"  he  reflected. 

A  whole  world  of  strange  possibilities  opened  before 
him.  He  saw  himself  becoming  a  settler  in  Beaucourt, 
using  his  strength  and  his  knowledge  in  helping  these 
French  folk  to  rebuild  their  broken  houses.  And  then  he 
began  to  wonder  whether  the  French  would  accept  him, 
and  how  far  it  would  be  possible  for  him  to  play  the  part 
of  a  Frenchman.  His  accent  was  passable,  his  fluency 
very  fair,  and  he  knew  that  he  had  met  with  no  disaster 
on  the  way  from  Charleroi.  He  had  posed  as  a  southerner, 
and  had  trusted  not  a  little  to  the  vagaries  of  patois  and 
provincialisms ;  but  settling  in  such  a  place  as  Beaucourt 
was  a  very  different  problem.  It  was  obvious  that  he  could 
pose  as  a  Frenchman  who  had  been  domiciled  in  England 
for  ten  years,  and  whose  accent  had  become  anglicized. 
It  was  equally  obvious  that  he  could  produce  no  records 
and  that  he  would  have  to  depend  upon  an  amiable  accept- 
ance of  his  tale  and  an  atmosphere  that  included  no  enmity. 
Yet  he  could  pack  his  bag  and  march  at  an  hour's  notice. 
He  had  a  little  money,  and  a  workman's  craft  that  could 
keep  him.  His  original  plan  had  been  to  wander,  to  go 
east  or  west  as  the  chance  offered,  to  spin  a  yarn  about 
ahell-shock  and  loss  of  memory  if  he  found  himself  in 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  43 

an  awkward  situation.  Nothing  mattered  so  long  as  he 
disappeared. 

Yet  the  adventure  appealed  to  Brent,  and  Beaucourt 
had  taken  a  mysterious  grip  of  his  manhood.  As  he  sat 
and  stared  at  the  reddening  stove  and  fed  it  with  wood 
from  the  heap  beside  him,  he  could  see  the  women  and  chil- 
dren and  a  few  men  coming  back  to  live  among  these  ruins, 
unfortunates  obsessed  by  the  tradition  of  "home."  He 
saw  little  Manon  Latour  trudging  along  the  road  from 
Bonniere  and  standing  with  blank  face  and  hopeless  eyes 
before  this  shell  of  a  house.  He  saw  old  women  grubbing 
in  the  ruins,  bent  figures  bowed  down  and  trying  to  clean 
the  rubbish  and  the  fallen  beams  and  rafters  from  the 
floors.  He  saw  men  working  savagely  at  little  shanties, 
or  hammering  at  some  extemporized  roof,  and  always  with 
an  eye  on  the  sky.  It  would  rain;  it  would  blow.  The 
gardens  were  full  of  weeds  and  rubbish,  and  would  need 
cleaning  before  crops  could  be  grown.  The  thing  seemed 
almost  beyond  human  patience. 

What  would  they  make  of  Beaucourt — these  poor  peo- 
ple ?  Would  they  have  the  heart  and  the  courage  to  begin 
life  over  again  ? 

Brent  found  himself  becoming  fascinated  by  the  trag- 
edy of  this  French  village,  a  tragedy  that  was  one  of 
the  bleeding  wounds  in  the  side  of  France.  He  was 
strangely  yet  humanly  curious  to  see  what  would  happen, 
and  more  than  half  tempted  to  lend  a  hand  in  the  healing 
of  it.  The  job  would  be  a  man's  job,  better  than  punch- 
ing holes  in  tickets,  scribbling  in  a  ledger,  or  passing 
groceries  across  the  counter  of  a  shop. 

Still — it  was  no  more  than  a  dream,  and  Brent  felt 
sleepy. 

"I  wonder  what  will  turn  up,"  was  his  thought  as  he 
took  off  his  boots  and  dragged  the  wire  bed  nearer  the 
stove.  Placing  his  carpet-bag  to  serve  as  a  pillow,  he  lay 
down  and  wrapped  his  greatcoat  round  him. 

And  it  was  still  a  dream,  and  no  more  than  a  dream, 
when  Brent  fell  asleep. 


vm 

THE  cellar  of  the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire  was  30  snug  and 
warm  and  Brent  so  healthily  tired  after  his  first  long  day 
in  Beaucourt  that  he  slept  till  nine  o'clock,  twelve  sound 
wholesome  hours. 

Someone  was  moving  about  overhead  in  the  kitchen. 
A  box  was  overturned,  and  the  clatter  woke  Brent.  H» 
sat  up  and  listened  to  a  sound  that  was  surprising  and  sin- 
gular because  of  its  unexpectedness,  an  unexpectedness 
that  was  not  without  pathos.  Brent  sat  very  still,  cursing 
the  wire  bed  because  it  creaked  even  when  he  breathed 
and  creaked  most  self-assertively.  He  could  hear  a 
woman  weeping  up  above  there,  weeping  her  heart  ont 
with  a  passion  that  broke  into  little  exclamations  of 
anguish  and  despair :  "O  my  little  house ! — what  a  trag- 
edy ! — What  a  ruin !  Nothing  left,  not  even  a  door." 

And  Brent  understood  that  Manon  Latour  had  returned. 
His  first  sensation  was  one  of  puzzled  discomfort.  H« 
did  not  know  whether  to  climb  the  steps  and  add  the 
embarrassment  of  an  explanation  to  the  tumult  of  her 
emotion,  or  whether  he  should  lie  hidden  until  she  had 
recovered  her  self-control.  Yet  it  seemed  rather  a  negative 
piece  of  poltroonery  for  him  to  sit  there  in  the  cellar  listen- 
ing to  the  sound  of  her  weeping.  There  was  a  nakedness 
about  her  grief  that  embarrassed  Brent.  Manon  thought 
herself  alone ;  she  had  thrown  herself  upon  the  bosom  of 
Beaucourt's  solitude,  and  Brent  felt  like  some  Peeping 
Tom  spying  upon  her  nakedness. 

In  the  end  he  did  what  the  plain  man  and  soldier  in 

him  wanted  to  do.    Too  much  psychology  might  ruin  any 

love  affair ;  in  life  it  is  the  emotions  that  matter.     Brent 

went  up  the  stone  steps  in  his  socked  feet,  walked  along 

44 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  46 

the  short  passage,  and  stood  in  the  kitchen  doorway, 
looking  at  Manon  Latour. 

She  was  sitting  on  a  box,  her  hands  covering  her  face 
as  though  she  were  praying,  a  little  figure  in  black,  a  figure 
that  was  still  tremulous  with  emotion.  A  bag  lay  on  the 
floor  beside  the  box.  Brent  2#ticed  her  muddy  shoes 
her  black  hat  and  cloak  hung  on  a  nail,  and  the  pretty 
way  her  dark  hair  was  wound  like  a  wreath  about  her  head. 
She  had  a  mass  of  hair,  lustrous  as  the  surface  of  a  freshly 
broken  piece  of  coal,  and  its  blackness  contrasted  with 
the  characteristic  pallor  of  her  face  and  throat.  Brent's 
recollection  of  a  year  ago  had  left  him  the  memory  of  a 
brave  and  very  determined  little  woman  with  bright, 
dark  eyes,  a  little  woman  who  had  faced  him  with  a  sang- 
froid that  had  impressed  a  man  who  had  learnt  to  resj>ect 
one  thing  and  one  thing  only — courage.  And  now  he 
saw  her  in  tears  over  this  wreck  of  a  house,  and  her  tears 
touched  Brent's  heart.  He  had  a  feeling  that  these  were 
not  the  tears  of  a  woman  who  wept  easily  like  an  April 
sky.  She  was  shocked,  overwhelmed,  discouraged. 

"Madame!" 

Her  hands  dropped  from  her  face.  She  looked  at  Brent 
with  eyes  that  accepted  him  as  a  Frenchman  who  had 
happened  to  wander  in,  another  homeless  soul  lost  in  the 
ruins  of  Beaucourt. 

"Good  day,  monsieur.  It  is  a  pleasant  home-coming, 
is  it  not  ? — Perhaps  one  expects  too  much !" 

She  gave  a  little  twitch  of  the  shoulders. 

"It  appears  that  I  have  no  chair  to  offer  a  visitor.  My 
cafe  has  plenty  of  fresh  air,  but  no  furniture." 

Brent  had  felt  instantly  that  the  house  was  hers,  and 
that  he  had  no  right  to  be  in  it;  his  sense  of  ownership 
ranished ;  the  cellar  had  ceased  to  be  his  billet.  He  stood 
with  one  shoulder  resting  against  the  wall,  considering  the 
situation,  while  Manon  was  trying  to  remember  him  as 
some  neighbour  whose  face  had  been  part  of  the  familiar 
life  of  Beaucourt.  She  saw  a  man  in  velveteen  breeches 
and  a  black  coat,  with  a  dark  blue  scarf  knotted  round  his 


46  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE 

neck,  a  man  with  a  ruddy  and  rather  delicate  skin,  a  short 
brown  beard,  and  a  small  moustache.  His  eyes  were  of 
that  soft  but  intense  blue  that  belonged  to  the  north  and 
the  open  air ;  intelligent  eyes  set  well  apart  under  a  square 
forehead.  He  had  a  good-tempered,  easy  mouth.  It  was 
the  face  of  an  incomplex  man,  whimsical,  a  little  sad. 
There  was  nothing  distinctive  about  him,  he  was  like  thou- 
sands of  other  men,  neither  tall  nor  short,  a  very  ordinary 
person,  save  perhaps  for  his  eyes.  They  were  a  little 
unusual — less  stupid  and  self-absorbed  than  the  eyes  of 
most  men.  There  was  something  in  them  that  appealed 
to  the  woman. 

Manon  did  not  recognize  Brent. 

"I  am  trying  to  remember  you,  monsieur." 

"I  do  not  belong  to  Beaucourt." 

She  noticed  that  he  was  without  boots,  and  again  sh« 
was  puzzled,  for  his  socks  were  clean.  Either  he  had 
been  in  the  house  all  the  while,  or  he  had  left  his  boots  on 
the  doorstep.  Brent  saw  that  she  was  looking  at  hia  feet, 
and  that  she  was  puzzled. 

"I  spent  the  night  in  your  cellar,  madame,  and  my 
boots  are  down  there." 

"How  droll !    I  seem  to  have  seen  you  before." 

"It  was  about  a  year  ago." 

She  was  interested,  challenged. 

"Was  it  here?" 

"Yes,  here  in  Beaucourt." 

And  then  he  put  his  head  back  and  smiled. 

"It  is  still  there;  the  ground  has  not  been  touched." 

She  stared.  Her  eyes  changed  from  a  deep  brown  to 
black;  her  face  grew  more  serious,  and  seemed  to  show 
little  shadow-marks  under  the  eyes  and  about  the  mouth. 
She  stood  up,  came  a  step  nearer,  and  looked  Brent  straight 
in  the  face. 

"Of  what  do  you  speak  ?" 

"The  treasure  that  you  buried  in  the  garden." 

He  saw  her  face  as  a  hard,  white  surface,  and  her  eye§ 
as  two  hard,  black  circles. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  47 

"But — who  are  you?    It  was  an  English  soldier." 

"I  was  that  English  soldier,  madame.  Shall  I  prove 
it?" 

"Yes." 

He  went  and  groped  in  the  cellar  for  his  boots,  and 
sitting  on  the  top  step,  laced  them  on,  while  Manon  Latour 
waited  in  the  passage.  A  little  widow  who  has  kept  a 
cafe,  and  has  had  half  the  men  in  the  village  in  love  with 
her,  cannot  but  know  something  of  man  and  of  the  very 
obvious  habits  of  the  creature.  Also,  a  pretty  woman 
who  has  a  head  on  her  shoulders  is  apt  to  get  very  bored 
with  the  perennial  fools.  They  all  tell  the  same  tale ;  they 
all  want  the  same  reward.  Manon  had  grown  fastidious. 

But  this  man  puzzled  her  from  the  very  beginning. 
What  was  he  doing  in  French  clothes,  and  why  had  he 
come  back  to  Beaucourt?  She  chose  the  direct  method, 
and  asked  him  the  reason. 

Brent  was  knotting  the  lace  of  his  left  boot.  He  looked 
up  over  his  shoulder  and  smiled. 

"I  had  a  dream " 

He  saw  that  she  was  quite  unconvinced. 

"Why  does  one  do  certain  things?  Have  you  a  reason 
for  everything  ?  My  friend  was  buried  here,  that's  all." 

He  got  up  and  went  out  into  the  yard,  and  Manon 
followed  him.  Brent  turned  into  the  garden  through  the 
gate  in  the  stone  wall,  and  walked  along  the  weedy  path 
between  the  currant  bushes  and  the  dead  stalks  of  last 
year's  cabbages.  He  stopped  at  the  place  where  the  shell 
had  punched  a  hole  through  the  wall,  and  where  the  stones 
lay  scattered. 

"Is  the  place  as  you  remember  it  ?" 

Her  eyes  were  still  intensely  black,  her  forehead 
worried. 

"ISTo." 

"And  the  difference  ?" 

"The  place  was  here — just  in  front  of  the  stump  of 
that  old  espalier.  There  was  nothing  but  earth  and  weeds. 
No  stones." 


48  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

"I  put  the  stones  there,"  said  Brent. 

She  gave  him  a  quick  gleam  of  the  eyes. 

"You?" 

"Yes,  after  you  had  gone.  I  thought  the  thing  would 
look  more  natural.  Then  I  went  to  bury  my  friend. 
After  that — I  was  taken  prisoner." 

She  remained  calm,  judicial,  compelling  herself  to  a 
cool  realization  of  the  fact  that  this  man  had  kept  faith 
with  her,  if  all  that  she  had  buried  there  was  under  the 
soil.  And  then,  another  thought  prompted  her  to  ask 
him  a  question. 

"You  say,  monsieur,  that  you  came  back  to  see  the 
grave  of  your  friend  ?" 

She  was  aware  of  Brent's  blue  eyes  lighting  up  with 
a  flicker  of  shrewdness  and  humour. 

"No,  I  did  not  come  back  to  rob  you." 

"I  had  not  accused  you  of  that." 

"If  the  thought  was  there,  it  was  natural." 

She  felt  ashamed  of  having  asked  him  that  question, 
and  her  face  softened. 

"It  is  all  so  strange.  You  come  back  as  a  Frenchman^., 
and  in  French  clothes." 

"That's  of  no  importance,"  he  said ;  "there  is  only  one 
thing  that  matters  at  this  moment — the  proof  that  I 
did  not  rob  you." 

"But— wait " 

She  caught  his  arm  as  he  turned  to  fetch  a  rusty  spade 
he  had  seen  lying  among  the  rubbish  in  the  yard. 

"Supposing  someone  else  had  found  it — and  taken  it 
away?" 

"Then  you  would  disbelieve  me  ?" 

She  thought  a  moment. 

"No." 

Brent  went  for  the  spade,  threw  the  stones  aside  and 
began  to  dig.  Manon  did  not  move  or  offer  to  help. 
She  stood  and  watched  him,  conscious  of  the  sudden  and 
peculiar  intimacy  that  was  joining  her  to  this  unexpected 
man.  She  was  convinced  that  he  had  told  her  the  truth. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  49 

Brent  had  opened  a  hole  about  a  foot  deep. 

"Be  careful,"  she  said  suddenly;  "the  silver  is  in  a 
big  crock.  You  might  strike  it  with  a  spade." 

Brent's  blue  eyes  flashed  her  a  look  of  gratitude.  She 
had  thrown  him  a  "Hail,  comrade,"  uttered  one  of  those 
little,  human  confessions  of  faith  that  warm  a  man's  heart. 
8he  wanted  him  to  understand  that  she  believed  in  him, 
and  that  he  should  understand  it  before  the  spade  turned 
up  the  truth.  Brent  treasured  these  words.  They  touched 
the  pride  of  a  man  who  had  been  a  failure. 

"How  deep  did  you  dig?"  he  asked. 

"About  half  a  metre — I  had  so  little  time." 

Brent  thrust  the  spade  softly  into  the  soil  and  felt  it 
jar  on  something  solid.  He  glanced  at  Manon  with  an 
air  of  triumph. 

"It  is  there." 

She  looked  down  into  the  hole  and  then  at  Brent. 

"You  are  a  man  of  your  word,  monsieur.    I  thank  you." 

Brent  spaded  out  a  little  more  of  the  soil,  and  then  went 
on  his  hands  and  knees  and  began  to  grope  in  the  hole. 
First  he  lifted  out  a  big  crock  that  was  full  of  loose  silver, 
one-franc,  two-franc,  and  five-franc  pieces.  Below  the 
crock  lay  a  tin  trunk  painted  a  yellowish  brown.  Only 
a  portion  of  the  lid  showed — the  place  where  the  crock  had 
stood;  the  rest  was  covered  with  earth. 

He  looked  questioningly  at  Manon  Latour. 

"Let  it  stay  there,"  she  said. 

And  then  she  laughed. 

"You  will  be  thinking  me  a  miser,  monsieur,  but  all 
that  belonged  to  my  husband  who  is  dead." 

"Shall  I  put  the  silver  back  in  the  same  place  ?" 

"Yes, — put  it  back,  if  you  please,  monsieur.  That 
hole  will  make  the  safest  bank  I  can  think  of." 

"I  suppose  there  is  no  one  watching  us?"  said  Brent, 
feeling  strangely  happy  at  being  included  in  the  con- 
ipiracy. 

She  looked  round  the  garden,  remembering  that  it  wai 
hidden  on  three  sides  by  ita  high  stone  wall. 


50  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

"It  is  not  likely.    I  saw  no  one  in  Beaucourt." 

Brent  replaced  the  crock,  and  shovelled  back  the  earth, 
and  Manon  helped  him  to  pile  the  stones  over  the  spot. 
She  appeared  to  be  thinking,  but  her  silence  was  without 
embarrassment  or  constraint.  Her  face  had  become  the 
face  of  a  serious  child,  a  child  who  was  neither  afraid  nor 
unhappy. 

"How  is  it  you  speak  French  so  well  ?"  she  asked  him 
with  a  child's  abruptness. 

"A  Frenchman  taught  me,  while  I  was  a  prisoner." 

She  nodded,  and  the  nod  seemed  to  suggest  that  she 
understood  that  he  had  reasons,  but  that  she  was  not 
worrying  her  head  about  them. 

"Tiens !  but  I  am  hungry — I  had  my  cup  of  coffee  and 
a  slice  of  bread  at  four.  Since  then  I  have  walked  from 
Ste.  Claire." 

Brent  threw  on  a  last  stone.  There  was  a  healthy 
zest  in  the  way  she  spoke  of  her  hunger. 

"And  Paul  has  not  had  even  that,"  he  said;  "but 
your  house  has  a  store-room  and  a  larder." 

"Then  it  is  a  miracle,"  she  answered. 

"Come  and  see  the  miracle.  It  is  right  that  you  should 
take  possession." 


IX 

So  these  two  went  back  to  the  battered  old  red  house 
with  the  patches  of  white  plaster  still  hanging  to  the  walls 
of  its  rooms,  and  the  blue  February  sky  showing  where 
its  roof  should  have  been.  The  window  of  the  kitchen 
looked  along  the  Hue  de  Picardie  and  all  the  broken  and 
jagged  outlines  of  the  village,  etched  with  black  rafters 
and  the  rawness  of  fractured  brick.  The  snapped  spire 
of  the  church  was  the  colour  of  amethyst.  White  clouds 
floated  above  the  beeches  of  the  Bois  du  Renard. 

Manon  lingered  for  a  moment  at  this  window,  her  hands 
clenched,  something  between  pity  and  anger  in  her  eyes. 
Beaucourt  mattered  to  the  little  Frenchwoman  in  a  way 
that  no  restless  dweller  in  cities  could  understand.  It 
had  formed  the  background  of  her  memories,  a  quiet  place 
where  she  had  made  a  little  song  of  the  day's  work,  a  place 
where  life  had  been  rich  in  the  emotions  that  are  her 
religion  to  a  woman.  She  had  been  proud  of  her  cafe, 
proud  of  her  linen,  of  her  garden.  Her  happiness  had 
made  Beaucourt  what  no  other  place  in  the  world  could 
be  to  her.  As  the  old  Frenchman  had  put  it,  "The  roots 
of  life  were  deep  down  under  the  ruins." 

There  were  other  memories,  perhaps,  thoughts  that 
left  a  sour  taste  in  her  mouth,  but  Manon  was  thinking  of 
the  happier  days.  She  had  forgotten  Brent,  forgotten  her 
hunger,  as  she  stood  looking  out  upon  the  ruins ;  and  Brent 
waited  like  a  man  in  the  doorway  of  a  church,  some  sanc- 
tuary that  he  had  not  the  right  to  enter,  feeling  her  at 
her  prayers,  wise  enough  not  to  disturb  her.  Her  sadness 
was  like  a  sweet  smell  of  incense  and  the  soft  obscurity  of 
•ome  shrine.  She  was  no  mere  material  woman, — just  a 
51 


53  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

pretty,  white-skinned,  dark-eyed  creature,  with  a  beautiful 
bosom  and  a  soft  throat.  Manon  Latour  had  a  soul,  a 
little  white  fire  burning  in  her  heart.  That  was  what  Brent 
felt  about  her,  the  Brent  who  asked  for  those  dear  momenta 
of  mystery  in  a  woman,  for  the  flash  of  that  spiritual  fine- 
ness that  can  fill  the  eyes  with  a  mist  of  tears.  He  did  not 
want  money;  he  craved  for  self -expression, — the  simple 
human  things,  nearness  to  someone  who  was  a  little  better 
than  himself. 

Manon's  lingering  at  the  gap  in  the  wall  that  had  been 
a  window  lasted  but  a  few  seconds.  She  turned  to  Brent 
with  a  soft  animation  that  played  like  sunlight  across  tbt 
deeps  of  her  seriousness. 

"Forgive  me,  Monsieur  Paul." 

He  smiled  and  handed  her  a  box  of  matches. 

"You  will  find  a  candle  down  there,  and  all  that  you 
need.  I'm  afraid  I  have  not  lit  the  stove." 

Her  eyes  seemed  to  question  him.  "Is  it  that  you  are 
wiser  and  a  little  more  sensitive  than  other  men?  You 
can  hold  back." 

She  went  out  into  the  passage,  and  Brent  took  her 
place  at  the  window,  lounging  in  the  sunlight  with  hia 
hands  in  his  pockets,  and  recasting  the  metal  of  his  vision. 
For  a  few  short  hours  life  had  seemed  solid  and  real,  cen- 
tred in  that  cellar  in  ruined  Beaucourt,  a  life  of  quaint 
adventure,  a  boyish  game  played  with  the  elements  of 
existence  as  the  counters.  All  this  had  changed  with  the 
return  of  Manon  Latour.  Brent  felt  himself  adrift — on 
the  edge  again  of  a  casual  vagabondage.  He  was  surren- 
dering that  cellar  and  all  that  it  contained,  food,  shelter, 
even  the  vague  inspiration  that  had  been  born  in  it  H« 
saw  himself  packing  his  bag  and  marching. 

"Monsieur." 

He  had  been  so  absorbed  in  these  thoughts  that  he  had 
not  heard  her  re-enter  the  kitchen.  He  was  struck  by  her 
seriousness.  She,  too,  had  been  thinking. 

"How  long  have  you  been  in  Beaucourt?" 

"Since  yesterday,"  said  Brent 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  53 

She  sat  down  on  the  box. 

"Since  yesterday.  And  in  my  cellar  I  find  food  for 
manv  days,  a  bed,  plates,  blankets,  all  that  a  man  would 
think  of— if " 

She  paused,  looking  up  at  him. 

"What  I  did  yesterday  will  be  useful  to  you  to-day." 

He  smiled  as  he  spoke. 

"There  is  the  beginning  of  a  little  home  for  you, 
madame.  I  washed  the  blankets;  they  have  not  been 
used  since  I  washed  them,  and  they  will  be  dry  by  to- 
night. The  food  was  collected  by  me — in  Beaucourt." 

She  interrupted  him. 

"Then — you  meant  to  stay  in  Beaucourt  ?" 

His  face  remained  turned  to  the  window,  and  she  saw 
it  in  profile. 

"I  had  thought  of  it.  Just  a  whim,  you  know,  the 
whim  of  a  man  who  was  starting  life  over  again.  Bj 
the  way,  the  matches  and  the  candles  belonged  to  me. 
I  can  leave  you  two  boxes — and  if  I  may  take  one  candle  ?" 

Her  eyes  were  dark  with  some  emotion  that  Brent  did 
not  fathom. 

"And  where  will  you  go  ?" 

He  refused  to  look  at  her. 

"Oh,  anywhere.     It  does  not  matter." 

"There  is  nothing  that  does  not  matter.  And — you 
want  your  breakfast.  Shall  we  have  it  up  here  in  the  sun- 
light?" 

Brent's  chin  swung  round.    He  stared. 

".Tust  as  you  please." 

She  got  up. 

"I  must  light  the  stove.  Or  perhaps  you  are  more  clever 
at  it  than  I  am.  Supposing  I  wash  those  plates.  I  can 
find  some  more  boxes  and  make  a  table  and  seats  here. 
And  I  have  a  packet  of  coffee  in  my  bag." 

"Mon  Dieu !"  said  Brent.  "Life  is  good.  I'll  go  and 
light  thait  stove." 

He  went  about  the  work  like  a  thoroughly  practical 
man,  trying  to  limit  the  day's  outlook  to  that  one  word 


54  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

"breakfast,"  and  refusing  to  see  anything  sentimental  in 
lighting  a  stove  and  boiling  a  saucepan  of  water. 

"Anyhow,  I  shall  start  the  day  with  a  meal,"  he  said 
to  himself;  "I  wonder  what  she  will  make  of  this  place 
when  I  have  gone  ?" 

But  Manon — the  woman — kept  intruding  herself  upon 
Brent's  prosaic  philosophy. 

"Mon  ami — I  want  more  water,  and  there  is  no  bucket." 

Brent  went  upstairs  with  the  bucket  and  filled  it  at  the 
well. 

"We  ought  to  have  a  cistern,"  she  said  when  he  re- 
turned ;  "it  would  save  so  much  trouble." 

Brent  was  conscious  of  a  shock  of  surprise.  She  seemed 
to  be  thinking  in  twos,  while  he  was  carefully  limiting  the 
future  to  one.  But  then — Brent  knew  very  little  about 
women.  He  had  not  learnt  to  divide  the  sex  into  its  two 
groups,  the  woman  who  can  be  bought,  and  the  woman 
who  cannot.  The  woman  who  can  be  bought  had  always 
thought  Brent  a  fool,  because  he  had  made  a  mystery 
where  no  mystery  existed.  Brent  was  an  incorrigible 
romanticist,  and  your  material  woman  detests  romance. 
She  suffers  it  in  novels,  but  finds  the  thing  a  damnable 
nuisance  when  it  comes  gesturing  and  dreaming  and  get- 
ting itself  mixed  up  with  the  very  obvious  furniture  of 
her  very  obvious  little  life.  The  woman  who  could  not 
be  bought  understood  Brent  at  once.  She  was  ready  to 
trust  him — but  that  did  not  help  Brent  to  understand 
Manon  Latour. 

Manon  had  contrived  a  table  and  two  seats  in  the 
kitchen,  and  had  spread  a  clean  handkerchief  with  a  pink 
border  to  give  a  touch  of  feminine  refinement  to  the  deal 
box  that  formed  the  table.  That  handkerchief  fascinated 
Brent.  He  stood  staring  at  it  while  she  was  down  below 
making  the  coffee.  He  supposed  that  she  had  taken  that 
bit  of  pink  and  white  stuff  out  of  her  bag.  It  was  one  of 
those  little  touches  of  colour,  of  imagination,  that  are  like 
the  opening  of  a  flower,  or  the  voice  of  a  bird  when  the 
leaves  are  still  in  bud  upon  the  trees. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  55 

Then  he  heard  her  calling  him.  She  had  one  of  those 
pleasant,  animated  French  voices,  soft  and  expressive, 
a  voice  that  was  made  to  chatter  happily  about  a  house. 

"Mon  ami — will  you  help  ?" 

He  met  her  on  the  stairs. 

"The  candle  is  burning  out,  and  I  do  not  know  where 
to  find  another.  Besides — they  are  so  expensive;  we 
must  use  more  daylight.  Be  careful — it  is  very  hot." 

She  gave  him  the  pewter  coffee-pot,  and  was  ready  to 
follow  with  the  rest  of  the  meal.  And  she  had  a  surprise 
for  Brent — a  little  pat  of  fresh  butter  laid  out  on  a  rice- 
paper  serviette. 

"Allons!" 

They  sat  down  at  the  table,  with  the  blue  sky  for  a  roof. 
The  day  was  warm,  a  day  that  heartened  the  world  with 
a  breath  of  the  spring,  and  the  coffee  was  fragrant,  ex- 
quisite. Brent  spread  some  of  the  fresh  butter  on  a  bis- 
cuit, and  looked  vaguely  sad. 

"It  is  very  pleasant  here,"  he  said. 

Manon  was  cutting  herself  a  slice  of  bully  beef. 

"What  children  we  are!  And  a  child  is  the  most  in- 
quisitive thing  in  the  world." 

He  gave  her  a  sudden,  yet  shy  look. 

"Are  you  inquisitive?" 

"Well,  of  course.    But  I  do  not  catechize  a  friend." 

Brent  gulped  a  mouthful  of  hot  coffee,  put  the  cup  down, 
and  stared  at  the  pink  and  white  handkerchief  in  the 
middle  of  the  table. 

"I  would  like  to  think  I  was  that." 

She  understood  his  hesitation  and  kept  silent  Brent 
was  still  staring,  the  fingers  of  his  right  hand  holding  the 
cup. 

"I  am  supposed  to  be  dead,"  he  said  with  a  kind  of 
unwilling  abruptness. 

Manon  put  a  slice  of  corned  beef  upon  his  plate. 

"A  good  man  has  reasons." 

He  raised  his  eyes  to  hers. 

"A  good  man? — Well — perhaps!    You  see — I  made  a 


56  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

mess  of  life  over  there  in  England.  I  do  not  mean  to  go 
back." 

Manon's  eyes  held  his. 

"You  wish  to  become  a  Frenchman  ?" 

Brent  smiled  one  of  those  human  and  half-whimsical 
smiles. 

"Perhaps — I  want  to  make  a  fresh  start.  I'm  not  th« 
sort  of  man  who  makes  money;  I'm  too  easy-going.  I 
have  always  liked  the  things  that  you  can't  buy." 

"I  know  what  you  mean,"  said  Manon.  "One  can't 
buy  happiness,  can  one  ?" 

Brent's  eyes  lit  up. 

"Now— how  did  you  find  that  out?" 

"I  don't  think  I  ever  found  it  out,  mon  ami.  It's 
the  sort  of  thing  I  always  knew.  I  suppose  my  mother 
gave  it  me.  And  yet,  half  the  world  never  finds  it  out, 
and  dies  grumbling." 

Brent  looked  at  her  as  though  he  had  discovered  a 
miracle. 

"Extraordinary ! — I  always  knew  it — somehow,  but  the 
people  I  happened  to  live  with  did  not  believe  in  that 
sort  of  foolishness.  I  suppose  my  wife  was  an  unhappy 
woman;  she  was  always  wanting  something  she  had  not 
got  and  she  was  always  wanting  the  wrong  thing — some- 
thing that  meant  money.  Well,  of  course,  it  fell  on  me." 

She  gave  him  a  look  that  was  like  a  sympathetic  caress. 

"What  a  fool!    And  so ?" 

"I  smashed.  Then,  of  course,  she  hated  me.  I  was 
a  failure — according  to  her  ideas.  If  I  had  had  a  little 
pity,  I  might  have  got  up  again;  but  I  did  not  get  any 
pity-  A  man  does  like  to  have  his  head  stroked,  you 
know.  Then  the  war  came,  and  I  got  away." 

He  drank  his  coffee  and  Manon  refilled  his  cup. 

"How  did  you  manage  it  ?"  she  asked. 

"Manage  what?" 

"To  be  dead." 

He  looked  a  little  embarrassed,  and  then  he  told  her. 

"When  my  friend  was  killed  down  there  in  the  orchard, 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  57 

I  had  an  idea,  an  inspiration.  He  had  no  wife  or  children, 
no  one  who  cared.  So  I  buried  myself  in  his  grave,  and 
took  his  name.  It  was  so  simple.  I  wanted  to  disappear, 
and  to  begin  life  over  again." 

She  was  silent  for  a  while,  and  her  eyes  seemed  to  be 
looking  at  a  picture — a  picture  of  this  Englishman's  life. 
Her  silence  troubled  Brent.  He  began  to  fidget. 

"Perhaps  it  was  a  coward's  trick,"  he  suggested;  "what 
do  you  think?" 

"It  is  not  easy  to  judge." 

Manon  sat  very  still — realizing  that  he  was  in  earnest. 

"So  you  have  turned  Frenchman?" 

He  gave  her  a  shy  look. 

"I  managed  to  buy  these  clothes  in  Belgium,  and  then 
I  disappeared.  Paul  Brent  died  a  year  ago,  and  if  they 
look  for  Tom  Beckett,  my  friend,  well — they  will  never 
find  him.  If  necessary,  I  am  a  Frenchman  who  is  a  little 
touched  in  the  head.  I  have  forgotten  things.  All  my 
people  are  lost  or  dead;  that  happened  in  some  village — 
early  in  the  war.  I'm  just  Paul — a  vagabond.  If  people 
ask  too  many  questions  I  just  smile  and  shrug  my  shoul- 
ders." 

"But — all  that — will  lead  to  nothing,"  she  said  gravely ; 
"  a  dog's  life.  I  think  you  had  some  other  purpose  in  your 
mind — and  you  are  hiding  it  from  me." 

"I  have  shown  you  the  vagabond,  madame,  and  a 
vagabond  has  no  rights,  no  claims  upon  anybody." 

"Mon  ami,"  she  said,  "many  men  would  say  that  you 
were  a  fool  to  trust  a  woman.  You  shall  not  regret  it. 
When  I  look  at  these  ruins  I  feel  that  the  lives  of  all  of  ua 
will  have  to  begin  over  again." 


BRENT'S  day  had  begun  with  Manon's  tears,  and  those 
tears  of  hers  and  the  incident  of  the  untouched  treasure 
had  produced  in  both  of  them  an  atmosphere  of  emotional 
candour.  Brent's  confession  had  grown  out  of  the  emo- 
tion that  the  misfortunes  of  Manon  Latour  had  roused 
in  him,  and  the  tale  that  he  had  told  her  made  her  glimpse 
him  as  a  sort  of  lost  child,  a  man  who  was  better  than, 
his  past.  She  believed  that  he  had  told  her  the  truth. 
His  plan  to  begin  life  over  again  was  no  nai've,  so  whimsi- 
cal, and  so  sad,  that  it  moved  her  pity  and  made  her 
wonder  whether  something  more  significant  than  chance 
had  not  brought  Brent  to  Beaucourt. 

She  saw  that  he  was  making  ready  to  go.  He  had 
the  restless  air  of  a  man  who  was  girding  his  loins  for  the 
road  and  preparing  to  shoulder  his  bag.  She  felt  that 
he  was  sad  over  it,  and  that  he  was  not  so  greatly  in  love 
with  the  vagabond  life  of  which  he  spoke  so  lightly.  She 
thought  that  Brent  had  neither  the  eyes  nor  the  mouth  of 
a  wanderer.  She  could  fancy  him  loving  a  corner  by  the 
fire,  a  bit  of  garden  to  dig  in,  the  smell  of  a  stable,  a  glass 
of  wine  on  a  summer  evening,  someone  to  whom  he  could 
talk,  someone  who  did  not  listen  to  him  because  he  was 
a  stranger.  She  did  not  forget  the  corner  he  had  made  for 
himself  in  the  cellar.  A  man  who  collects  cups  and  plates 
and  lays  a  store  of  food  has  not  the  heart  of  an  Ishmaelite. 

The  meal  was  over  and  they  were  sitting  there  in 
silence,  very  conscious  of  each  other  and  of  the  elemental 
and  simple  needs  that  had  made  comrades  of  them  for 
an  hour.  Brent  was  filling  his  pipe.  He  looked  vaguely 
dejected,  and  she  noticed  this  all  the  more  because  he  was 
58 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTTTEE  59 

making  a  business  of  trading  in  cheerfulness.  Brent  waa 
a  bad  salesman. 

Manon  pulled  out  a  gold  watch,  a  watch  that  she  wore 
under  her  blouse  like  a  locket. 

"Eleven  o'clock!" 

Brent  straightened  with  uneasy  self-consciousness;  he 
felt  that  he  ought  to  be  on  the  road.  Manon  had  put 
her  watch  back,  and  she  appeared  to  have  forgotten 
Brent — though  she  was  thinking  of  him  all  the  while  with 
a  shrewdness  that  considered  everything.  If  Manon  had 
a  heart,  she  also  had  a  head. 

"Mon  ami,"  she  said  suddenly,  "I  shall  stay  here 
to-night" 

"The  cellar  ia  quite  dry." 

"That  long  walk  frightens  me.  It  is  seventeen  kilo- 
metres to  Ste.  Claire." 

"Too  far,"  said  Brent  with  grim  cheerfulness;  "yon 
will  be  quite  comfortable  here.  Those  blankets  should 
"be  dry — and  I'll  cut  you  some  more  wood  before  I  go." 

She  ignored  those  last  words  of  his,  and  stood  up, 
pushing  back  the  box  on  which  she  had  been  sitting. 

"I  want  to  look  again  at  all  my  little  property.  Will 
you  come  with  me  ?" 

Brent  glanced  at  her  in  surprise. 

"Of  course." 

He  rose  and  stood  waiting  while  she  took  her  cloak 
from  the  nail  and  flung  it  over  her  shoulders.  And  sud- 
denly he  saw  her  as  a  lonely  little  figure,  a  woman  left 
sitting  alone  in  this  ruined  house,  and  the  man  in  him 
rebelled.  He  pictured  her  helplessness,  the  impossible 
struggle  she  would  be  carrying  on  against  Nature,  and 
perhaps  against  men.  He  understood  that  life  in  Beau- 
court  would  be  very  primitive,  and  it  was  possible  that  it 
might  be  cruel.  There  were  all  the  elements  of  a  savage 
struggle  for  existence  among  these  rubbish-heaps  that  had 
been  houses. 

"I  am  ready." 

She  gave  him  a  flicker  of  her  brown  eyes,  eyei  that 


60  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE 

were  on  the  verge  of  tears.  He  saw  her  bite  her  lower  lip, 
and  stiffen  her  shoulders  as  they  went  out  into  the  street 
and  stood  there  together  looking  up  at  the  red  shell  of  the 
house.  A  little  furrow  of  pain,  pain  that  was  being  fought 
and  suppressed,  showed  on  Manon's  forehead. 

"Ma  pauvre  petite  maison !" 

Brent  knew  now  that  he  wanted  to  stay  in  Beau- 
court,  that  there  was  work  here,  work  fit  for  a  man's 
hands. 

"The  walls  are  good,"  he  said ;  "they  will  stand." 

"But  what  can  I  do  with  bare  walls,  mon  ami  ?" 

She  turned  and  walked  into  the  yard,  passing  between 
the  stone  pillars  that  had  lost  their  gates.  The  yard  was 
full  of  the  cosmopolitan  rubbish  that  war  creates,  the  ele- 
ments of  a  civilized  home  reduced  to  one  common  scrap- 
heap.  The  stable  had  lost  its  roof.  The  little  barn  and 
the  cow-house  were  mere  timber  frames  from  which  the 
tiles  and  the  plaster  had  fallen.  Manon  stood  and  looked 
at  it  all,  and  her  mouth  quivered. 

"You  see,"  she  said  with  a  helpless  gesture  of  the 
hands ;  "what  is  a  woman  to  do  ?" 

They  passed  on  into  the  garden,  and  the  garden  did  not 
despair.  It  had  one  great  wound,  a  huge  shell-hole  in  ita 
centre,  a  pit  into  which  the  Germans  had  pitched  their 
refuse,  but  an  hour  or  two's  work  with  a  spade  would  heal 
all  that.  The  two  holes  in  the  stone  wall  needed  stopping, 
and  the  espaliers  cried  out  for  the  pruning  knife,  but  as 
for  the  weeds,  well  they  would  make  green  manure.  Manon 
and  Paul  wandered  down  into  the  orchard,  climbing 
through  the  shell-hole  in  the  wall,  and  here  too  Nature 
had  a  smile  of  promise,  a  promise  of  green  growth  that 
nothing  could  hinder  or  dismay. 

Manon  saw  Beckett's  grave  and  glanced  at  Brent 

"Yes, — I  lie  there,"  he  said ;  "queer,  isn't  it  ?" 

"Was  he  a  good  man — your  comrade?" 

"He  was  a  better  man  as  a  soldier  than  I  was.  That's 
til  I  care  to  remember." 

She  turned  back  into  the  garden,  and  her  heart  failed 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE  61 

her  as  she  looked  at  the  roofless  house.  There  had  been 
an  arbour  in  the  garden  at  the  end  of  the  little  avenue  of 
pollarded  limes,  and  Manon's  memories  led  her  there. 
The  iron  frame  was  unbroken,  rambled  over  by  a  hardy 
vine  and  some  climbing  roses, — a  round  iron  table  stand- 
ing in  the  centre,  with  a  semi-circular  green  bench  at  the 
back  of  it.  People  had  forgotten  to  break  up  the  wooden 
bench  for  firewood. 

Manon  sat  down,  and  looked  up  at  Brent,  who  was 
knocking  the  bowl  of  his  pipe  against  the  edge  of  the  iron 
table.  His  face  was  serious — overshadowed. 

"Mon  ami,"  she  said  suddenly,  "I  think  that  I  am 
ruined." 

Brent  glanced  at  her,  and  her  eyes  hurt  him.  He  sat 
down  on  an  end  of  the  bench. 

"I  can  understand,"  he  said;  "it's— it's  damnable." 

She  began  to  talk  with  an  air  of  pathetic  candour. 

"You  see— my  life  lies  here;  the  place  is  part  of  my 
heart.  I  have  the  blood  of  peasants  in  me,  and  all  the  time 
I  think  of  the  past.  This  morning  I  did  not  know  what 
I  should  find  here;  I  had  such  hopes,  such  an  excitement 
of  tenderness.  And  look  at  the  poor  place !" 

She  seemed  to  be  touching  something  with  gentle  and 
caressing  hands. 

"What  can  a  woman  do?  I  have  a  little  money,  but 
all  the  others  will  be  too  busy  to  help.  I  shall  not  be  able 
to  hire  labour.  And  even  if  my  hands  were  the  hands  of  a 
man  I  should  not  know  where  or  how  to  begin." 

Brent  had  the  stem  of  his  empty  pipe  gripped  between 
his  teeth.  He  was  staring  at  the  house;  and  suddenly  he 
turned  to  Manon. 

"I  am  going  to  speak  out.    I  shall  not  hurt  you." 

"I  am  not  afraid,"  she  said  simply. 

"Do  you  remember  my  telling  you  that  I  had  had  a 
dream  ?  It  happened  at  Peronne,  only  a  few  days  ago.  My 
dead  friend  who  is  over  there  came  and  spoke  to  me — we 
were  here  in  this  garden — but  I  could  not  understand  what 
fee  said.  When  I  woke  up  I  had  a  feeling  that  I  should 


62  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

come  to  Beaucourt,  that  it  was  my  business  to  come  to 
Beaucourt.  And  last  night  as  I  sat  in  that  cellar  of  yours, 
I  began  to  wonder  whether  some  wise  spirit  had  not  sent 
me  here.  I  want  work,  a  new  chance,  something  to  make 
me  feel  a  man.  That's  how  it  happened;  just  like  that." 

"I  can  believe  it,"  she  said. 

He  went  on,  not  looking  at  her,  but  staring  at  the  ground : 

"I  told  you  I  wanted  to  make  a  fresh  start.  Why 
should  I  go  any  farther?  I  have  a  little  money,  and  one 
will  want  but  little  in  Beaucourt  to  begin  with — just  food 
and  boots  and  a  little  tobacco.  Why  shouldn't  I  stay  and 
rebuild  your  house  ?" 

She  was  looking  at  him  with  her  brown  eyes  wide 
open,  softly,  and  with  a  kind  of  gentle  incredulity. 

"Mon  ami,  it  is  a  beautiful  thought;  but  it  is  not 
possible." 

She  saw  the  muscles  of  his  jaw  tighten. 

"You  mean  that  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  stay  here  ?" 

"No,  no !  But  how  can  you  put  a  roof  on  my  house ! 
Where  are  the  wood  and  the  tiles  to  come  from  ? 
Besides " 

He  began  to  smile. 

"It  could  be  done." 

"But — you  are  dreaming  ?" 

"I'm  very  wide  awake,"  he  said,  "and  I  say  that  it 
could  be  done.  You  have  not  seen  as  much  of  Beaucourt 
as  I  have.  There  are  army  huts  over  there — a  little 
knocked  about — but  I  could  get  enough  timber  and  cor- 
rugated iron  out  of  them  to  do  the  job.  You  see — ten  years 
ago  I  was  building  houses  with  my  own  hands." 

"Are  you  serious  ?" 

"I  was  never  more  serious  in  my  life." 

Manon  leant  forward  over  the  table,  one  hand  shading 
her  eyes  and  a  faint  flush  showing  upon  her  face.  The 
forefinger  of  her  right  hand  traced  crosses  and  circles  on 
the  top  of  the  iron  table.  She  began  to  speak,  hesitated, 
and  fell  back  into  silence.  The  colour  died  away  from  her 
face ;  she  became  very  pale,  so  pale  that  even  her  red  lips 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  63 

looked  blanched.  The  very  intensity  of  her  emotion  broke 
in  a  storm  of  fierce  sincerity.  She  turned  on  Brent  and 
attacked  him. 

"What  is  it  that  you  want  V9 

And  Brent  did  not  flinch. 

"I  have  told  you.  Work — a  new  chance — a  man's 
chance." 

She  gave  a  flick  of  the  head. 

"Oh,  I  know  men !  They  do  not  do  things  for  nothing. 
Let  us  have  no  misunderstanding.  I  have  nothing  to  give 
but  a  little  money." 

Brent  faced  it  out  as  he  had  faced  many  a  bloody  ten 
minutes.  He  was  a  little  grim,  but  very  gentle;  and  all 
his  sympathies  were  with  Marion. 

"Now  we  are  down  to  the  foundations,"  he  said ;  "yon 
have  cleared  all  the  rubbish  away.  You  can  hit  out  at  me; 
it  doesn't  hurt — because  you  are  being  honest,  and  I'm 
not  a  cad.  I  don't  want  your  money.  I  don't  expect 
anything.  I  don't  say  that  I  shouldn't  fall  in  love  with 
you  if  I  stayed  here — but  even  if  I  did,  it  wouldn't  be 
the  sort  of  love  that  makes  a  man  behave  like  a  beast. 
That's  aU  I  have  to  say." 

She  smiled;  her  colour  returned;  her  lips  and  her 
eyes  softened. 

"Somehow  I  believe  you,"  she  said,  "though  I  could 
not  tell  you  why.  And  yet — what  would  you  get  out  of 
such  a  life,  what  would  it  lead  to — for  you  ?" 

Brent  leant  over  towards  her. 

"Manon,"  he  said,  "can  you  understand  a  man  who 
has  been  a  failure  wanting  to  do  something  that  is  good 
and  unselfish  ?  Can't  you  understand  him  craving  for  a 
clean  taste  of  life  in  his  mouth  ?" 

"I  can  understand  it,"  she  answered. 

"Good  God — do  we  always  sit  down  and  work  out  a 
sum  on  paper  ?  Aren't  there  bits  of  fine  madness  in  life — 
glorious  things  that  seem  mad  to  the  careful  people  ?" 

She  held  out  a  hand. 

"My  friend,  forgive  me;  but  I  have  been  a  woman  to 


64  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE 

whom  many  men  have  made  love.  The  fools  do  it  so  easily 
and  they  expect  a  woman  to  be  flattered  and  to  surrender 
just  as  one  opens  a  door." 

Brent  grasped  her  hand. 

"Then— I  may  stay?" 

"Yes." 

He  threw  up  his  head  with  an  air  of  pride,  and  a  flash 
of  half-boyish  exultation. 

"That's  great  of  you — great.  You  are  giving  me  my 
«hance.  Let's  go  and  look  at  the  house;  let's  get  at  it 
— at  once.  I  want  to  take  my  coat  off." 


XI 

FBOM  that  moment  they  were  like  children  carried  away 
by  the  excitement  of  the  adventure.  The  droop  had  gone 
from  Manon's  eyelids.  She  glowed,  she  laughed,  she  chat- 
tered, her  brown  eyes  alight,  her  heart  full  of  the  spirit  of 
romance. 

"What  an  adventure!" 

"A  very  devil  of  an  adventure,"  said  Brent.  "I  feel 
man  enough  to  tackle  the  pyramids." 

She  laughed  and  laid  hold  of  his  hand. 

"I  shall  call  you  Paul,"  she  said,  "and  you  can  call  me 
Manon.  Now,  we  must  not  be  in  a  hurry;  we  must  con- 
sider everything — like  wise  people." 

"Heads  first,  hands  afterwards.  Let  us  go  and  look 
at  the  house,  and  get  our  plans  on  paper." 

He  carried  the  two  boxes  down  into  the  street,  while 
Manon  searched  in  her  handbag  for  something.  She 
joined  him  on  the  strip  of  grey  pave  between  the  wrecked 
houses,  a  note-book  in  one  hand,  a  pencil  in  the  other. 

"You  see  I  have  a  head." 

Brent  smiled  like  a  boy. 

"Trust  a  Frenchwoman  to  be  practical!  Just  what  I 
wanted.  Now  then." 

They  sat  down  side  by  side  in  the  open  street,  with  the 
February  sunlight  shining  on  them,  and  the  silence  of 
Beaucourt  unbroken  save  by  their  two  voices.  Brent  had 
the  note-book  open  on  his  knee,  and  he  was  looking  criti- 
cally at  the  house. 

"Now  then,  let's  be  obvious.    What  do  you  see  ?" 

Her  intense   and  glowing  seriousness   delighted  him. 
It  was  like  playing  a  game  with  a  charming  child. 
65 


66  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

"I  see  no  roof,"  she  said. 

"Exactly.  That's  the  most  obvious  thing.  Let's  start 
with  that.  A  roof  means  timber,  corrugated  iron,  nails, 
a  saw,  a  hammer,  a  jemmy  or  iron  bar  for  getting  the 
stuff.  That's  bedrock.  I'll  make  notes  of  all  these — under 
the  word  'Roof .'  " 

She  looked  over  his  shoulder  while  he  wrote. 

"How  pleasant  it  looks  on  paper.  We  must  find  all 
that  we  can  in  Beaucourt.  Can  we  not  go  now,  at 
once  ?" 

He  turned  and  looked  at  her  with  eyes  that  laughed. 

"Who  was  it  said  that  we  must  not  be  in  a  hurry  ?" 

"But  I'm  so  excited." 

"Keep  cool.    Now,  what  next  ?" 

"I  see  two  holes  in  the  wall,  one  just  under  where  the 
roof  was,  the  other  on  the  right  of  the  window  of  the 
public  room." 

"We  have  to  fill  up  those  holes  before  we  start  the 
roof.  That  means  lime,  sand,  bricks,  and  a  bricklayer's 
trowel.  I  write  them  down." 

"But  can  you  lay  bricks  ?" 

"Yes." 

"What  a  wonderful  man!" 

"Now  then — where  the  devil  are  we  to  get  lime  and 
sand?" 

"Ah,  where?" 

She  sat  with  her  head  slightly  on  one  side,  exquisitely 
solemn,  frowning. 

"The  factory!  There  used  to  be  sand  at  the  factory. 
And  bricks — they  are  everywhere.  But  lime  ?  O  mon 
Dieu!" 

"We'll  manage  somehow,"  said  Brent,  "even  if  I  have 
to  use  mud  and  straw.  Plenty  of  straw  in  the  old  pal- 
liasses lying  about.  What  next  ?" 

"No  doors." 

"A  carpenter's  job." 

"No  windows." 

"H'm,"  said  Brent  reflectively,  "I  wonder  if  there  is 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  67 

a  dump  anywhere  about  here.     Oiled  linen?     Yes.     I 
don't  mind  what  I  thieve." 

She  laughed. 

"What  morals !  But— I  like  it  Oh,  what  an  adven- 
ture— what  life !" 

Brent  was  making  notes,  and  Manon  pulled  out  her 
watch ;  its  hands  stood  at  five  minutes  past  twelve.  There 
was  dinner  to  be  remembered;  she  would  be  responsible 
for  these  household  necessities,  while  her  man  worked, 
but  Manon  was  too  excited  to  think  of  eating.  She  wanted 
to  explore  Beaucourt,  to  discover  all  the  wonderful  things 
they  needed,  stacks  of  timber,  mountains  of  corrugated 
iron.  The  iron  would  look  horrible  after  the  old  red- 
brown  tiles,  but  Manon  reminded  herself  that  it  could 
be  painted  and  that  it  would  be  the  first  whole  roof  in 
Beaucourt. 

"Are  vou  hungry,  mon  ami  ?" 

"Not  a  bit." 

"I  want  to  explore." 

He  put  the  note-book  away,  and  they  started  out  on 
their  first  voyage  of  discovery.  Brent  turned  down  into 
the  Rosieres  road  and  through  a  stone  gateway  into  a 
grass  field.  He  remembered  having  noticed  half  a  dozen 
army  huts  standing  in  this  field,  and  he  rediscovered  them 
with  Manon  on  that  February  morning.  There  were  six 
of  these  huts,  and  three  of  them  were  in  very  fair  con- 
dition; one  had  been  wrecked  by  a  shell,  and  the  other 
two  damaged  by  splinters.  There  were  doors  to  be  had 
for  the  unscrewing  of  the  hinges,  window-frames  also, 
though  the  oiled  linen  had  been  blown  to  ribbons. 

Brent  went  through  the  huts,  examining  the  rafters 
and  the  condition  of  the  timber  framing.  He  paced  the 
floor  of  one  of  them  to  find  its  width,  and  then  stood  look- 
ing at  Manon. 

"Here  is  our  roof." 

"Is  there  enough?" 

"Enough  in  these  six  huts  to  roof  half  a  dozen 
And  I  think  I  can  use  these  rafters." 


C8  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

"I  shall  help,"  she  said;  "I  shall  work  like  a  man." 

Brent  found  a  single  wire  bed  in  one  of  the  huts.  He 
put  it  on  his  back,  and  dropped  it  outside  the  cafe  as  they 
repassed  it  on  their  way  into  the  village. 

'-I  can  rig  that  up  somewhere.  There  is  the  shelter 
in  the  kitchen." 

She  looked  horrified. 

"But  you  cannot  sleep  there." 

"Why  not?" 

"You  will  be  frozen." 

Brent  laughed. 

"I  was  a  soldier  for  four  years.  It  will  be  better  than 
the  fire-step  of  a  freezing  trench.  Now — what  about  this 
factory?" 

As  they  walked  along  the  little  Rue  Romaine,  Brent 
discovered  another  Manon,  a  Manon  who  kept  stopping  to 
look  at  some  wreck  of  a  house,  a  Manon  whose  brown  eyea 
were  full  of  pity.  She  forgot  the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire  for 
a  moment  and  lost  herself  in  the  tragedy  of  these  obscure 
little  cottages,  and  in  looking  through  their  broken  naked- 
ness at  the  weedy  gardens  that  showed  behind  them. 
Rain  had  pulped  the  fallen  plaster.  There  was  a  darkness, 
a.  slime  about  these  ruins,  a  sense  of  pollution.  Manon's 
face  seemed  to  have  aged.  The  irresponsible  buoyancy 
tad  disappeared  from  the  adventure  and  she  left  the  child- 
hood of  the  day  behind  her  in  passing  through  the  Rue 
Homaine. 

"O  mon  ami,  my  heart  bleeds." 

She  passed  in  front  of  a  cottage  in  which  a  picture  of 
the  Sacre  Creur  still  hung  from  a  wall  that  had  not  fallen. 
"Grandmere  Vitry  lived  here.  Do  you  see  the  picture — 
and  the  tiled  floor  all  covered  with  rubbish  ?  She  was  so 
|>roud  of  her  cottage — and  whenever  I  looked  in,  Grand- 
mere  seemed  to  be  polishing  that  floor." 

She  walked  on  a  few  steps  and  then  paused  again. 
Her  face  was  serious,  compassionate,  troubled. 

"I  seem  to  have  been  thinking  of  myself  and  of  no  one 
else.  Do  you  think  me  very  selfish,  Paul  ?" 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  69 

Her  eyes  appealed  to  him. 

"I  am  troubled.  I  begin  to  ask  myself,  'Ought  we  to 
pull  down  those  buildings — where  people  might  shelter? 
Is  it  fair  to  snatch  things  for  ourselves,  when  others  will 
need  them?'" 

Her  sudden  sensitive  hesitation  touched  Brent.  He 
was  being  shown  another  Manon  who  thought  of  others 
as  well  as  of  herself.  Brent's  heart  had  gone  hungry  for 
many  years,  craving  that  spiritual  food  without  which  no 
true  man  can  be  happy,  and  in  the  hands  of  this  little 
Frenchwoman  he  seemed  to  see  the  bread  and  wine  of  the 
great  human  sacrament. 

"Let  us  think  it  over,"  he  said. 

He  lit  his  pipe,  and  stood  silent  for  a  moment  as  though 
he  was  trying  to  visualize  Beaucourt  and  all  that  Beau- 
court  suggested.  The  war  had  taught  Brent  to  reduce 
life  to  its  elemental  facts.  He  had  seen  men  do  incredibly 
selfish  things,  and  incredibly  generous  things.  In  attack- 
ing it  had  been  necessary  to  keep  your  eyes  and  your  mind 
on  the  objective,  on  some  shell-smashed  bit  of  trench  that 
had  to  be  taken — and  held.  You  did  not  stop  to  look  at 
the  red  poppies  growing  among  the  weeds. 

"How  many  people  were  there  in  Beaucourt  before  the 
war?" 

"How  many  ?    Perhaps  two  thousand." 

"And  how  many  houses  ?" 

"I  can't  say — three  hundred  ?" 

"And  all — without  whole  roofs.  If  we  shared  out  the 
iron  on  these  huts,  each  house  might  claim  three  or  four 
pieces.  There  would  be  no  sense  in  it.  Besides — I  will 
try  to  get  all  that  we  want  from  the  huts  that  have  been 
damaged." 

They  stood  there  for  a  while,  arguing  the  ethics  of  the 
adventure — nor  did  Brent  find  Manon  easy  to  convince. 
He  liked  her  none  the  less  for  that.  She  stood  out  against 
herself  with  a  sturdiness  and  a  courage  that  searched  re- 
lentlessly for  some  sure  inspiration  that  could  satisfy  the 
religious  heart  of  a  woman. 


70  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

It  was  Brent  who  found  it. 

"Listen,"  lie  said ;  "I  will  tell  you  something  that  hap- 
pened to  my  comrade  who  lies  in  your  orchard.  It  was 
in  an  attack  on  the  ruins  of  a  village.  We  were  being 
smashed  to  bits  as  we  went  up  the  hill ;  the  men  faltered 
and  began  to  lie  down.  My  comrade  went  on.  We  saw 
him  climb  up  on  a  bit  of  wall  and  sit  there.  He  lit  his 
pipe,  and  waved  his  steel  hat  at  us.  We  got  up  and 
went  on." 

His  face  lit  up  over  that  grim  bit  of  courage. 

"I  can  see  it  all,"  she  said. 

"Well — we  have  got  to  be  like  that.  We  shall  be 
the  first  up  the  hill.  Perhaps  the  others  will  be  dismayed, 
ready  to  despair.  We  shall  be  on  our  bit  of  wall,  and  we 
ehall  wave  them  on,  and  shout — 'Courage !'  " 

"That  is  true." 

And  then  he  saw  the  light  of  vision  in  her  eyes. 

"And  we  can  help,  mon  ami,  we  can  help.  I  see  it — 
now — and  my  heart  is  happy.  Aliens !  There  is  courage 
in  what  we  do." 

The  factory  was  a  red  brick  building  on  the  south  of 
the  Rue  de  Bonniere,  where  the  Rue  Romaine  joined  it. 
Standing  in  the  valley,  its  chimney  and  ziz-zag  of  walls 
were  not  part  of  Beaucourt  as  the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire 
saw  it,  the  Arcadian  Beaucourt  with  none  of  the  grimy 
sweat  of  industrialism  upon  it.  Yet  the  factory  was 
to  prove  a  treasure  mine  to  Paul  and  Manon.  Its  glass 
roofs  were  shattered,  and  the  machinery  a  chaos  of  rusty 
iron,  but  lying  as  it  did,  well  away  from  the  Beaucourt 
cross-roads,  it  had  suffered  less  than  any  other  building. 

The  very  first  thing  that  Brent  saw  in  the  factory  yard 
was  an  iron  hand-barrow  tilted  against  a  wall. 

"Hallo!    Here's  luck." 

He  got  hold  of  the  barrow  and  found  that  it  was  sound 
and  strong.  A  piece  of  shrapnel  had  torn  a  hole  in  the 
bottom — just  for  "drainage"  as  Brent  put  it.  He  was 
quite  exulted  over  this  stroke  of  luck. 

Manon  was  watching  him  with  a  glimmer  of  light  in 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  71 

her  eyes.  She  had  begun  to  like  this  man  with  his  boy's 
moods  of  seriousness  and  fun,  his  moments  of  shyness  and 
enthusiasm. 

"It  is  a  little  present  from  le  bon  Dieu." 

"For  two  good  children.  Now,  supposing  you  take 
all  those  buildings  over  there,  while  I  go  through  the 
workshops.  It  will  save  time.  You  know  what  to  look 
for?" 

She  repeated  the  list. 

"Lime,  sand,  a  trowel — tools,  anything  that  looks  usa* 
ful." 

"By  George — I  had  forgotten  something.  What  ia. 
ladder  in  French  ?  Something  you  climb  up,  see  ?" 

He  made  a  show  of  climbing  a  ladder,  and  Manoa 
understood. 

"Echelle!    Of  course!" 

Brent  left  her  to  go  on  her  own  voyage  of  discovery 
and  made  his  way  into  the  factory.  The  tiled  floor  was 
littered  with  broken  glass  that  crisped  and  crackled  under 
Brent's  feet.  Here  and  there  a  girder  had  fallen  and  the 
place  looked  as  though  &  Zeppelin  had  plunged  through 
the  roof  and  was  rusting  in  a  tangled  mass  of  complex 
metal  work.  Brent  saw  nothing  here  but  scrap-iron.  He 
walked  through  a  doorway,  and  found  himself  in  what  had 
been  an  engineer's  shop. 

The  opportune  and  heaven-blessed  discoveries  of  the 
Swiss  Family  Robinson  were  not  more  singular  than 
Brent's  adventure  in  that  engineer's  shop.  The  indefati- 
gable Boche  appeared  to  have  used  the  place  as  a  workshop 
and  then  left  in  a  hurry,  and  the  British  troops  who  had 
followed  had  passed  through  with  equal  speed.  Luckily  no 
Chinese  had  been  sent  to  clear  up  the  village,  and  Brent 
was  the  first  salvage  man  on  the  spot.  He  collected  a 
couple  of  hammers,  a  wrench,  a  tommy-bar,  two  cold 
chisels,  a  brace  and  a  set  of  bits,  a  rusty  hack-saw — a 
whole  bag  of  nails,  and  an  assortment  of  bolts  and  nuts. 
He  was  like  an  excited  miser  grabbing  gold.  In  a  box 
under  one  of  the  benches  he  found  a  jack-plane,  a  pair 


72  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

of  pincers,  some  files,  and  a  gimlet.  The  whole  affair 
was  so  enormously  successful  that  it  seemed  absurd. 

He  filled  a  box  with  the  precious  treasure,  and  staggered 
out  to  meet  Manon.  She,  too,  had  rushed  to  meet  him, 
a  little  flushed  with  excitement,  a  blue  lacquered  tin  of 
corned  beef  in  her  hand. 

"I  have  found  a  ladder.  Its  top  is  broken — but  you 
might  mend  it." 

"Great!    Look  here!" 

He  showed  her  his  boxful  of  tools. 

«O,  monDieu!" 

•"Everything  I  want !    It's  absurd !" 

Her  eyes  filled  with  sudden  seriousness. 

"Someone  watches  over  us.  It  is  a  benediction.  Let 
MB  not  forget." 

And  then  she  showed  him  her  blue  tin. 

"There  are  dozens  of  these  scattered  about  in  the 
buildings.  We  ought  to  take  care  of  them.  They  may 
help  to  feed  some  of  the  others  when  they  come." 

Brent's  heart  blessed  her. 

"No  wonder  we  are  lucky,"  he  said. 

They  went  to  look  at  the  ladder.  Manon  had  dis- 
covered it  lying  behind  one  of  the  sheds ;  it  was  a  thirty- 
rung  ladder,  and  Brent  saw  that  the  right  pole  needed 
splinting  about  three  feet  from  the  top. 

"Just  long  enough,"  was  the  verdict,  "I  think  I'll  take 
this  home  before  anyone  else  borrows  it." 

He  shouldered  the  ladder  and  marched  off,  and  on 
his  way  back  met  Manon  trundling  the  barrow  along 
the  Rue  Romaine.  She  had  loaded  the  tools  into  it, 
and  the  iron  wheel  was  making  a  fine  clatter  over  the 
cobbles. 

Brent  took  charge  of  the  barrow. 

"I'm  getting  hungry,"  he  observed. 

"Poor  Monsieur  Paul." 

She  ran  on  ahead,  and  when  Brent  reached  the  cafe 
with  his  precious  plunder,  he  found  that  she  had  the  table 
ready  and  had  washed  the  plates.  The  two  glasses  wera 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  73 

set  out,  and  in  the  middle  of  the  table  stood  a  bottle  of 
red  wine. 

"Thunder,  what  is  this  ?" 

"I  brought  this  with  me.  We  will  drink  the  health  of 
the  adventure." 

She  poured  him  out  a  glass  of  wine. 

"And  I  have  a  secret." 

"Then— keep  it." 

She  laughed. 

"No  secrets  between  comrades.  There  are  thirty  bottles 
of  red  wine,  twenty  of  white,  and  a  flask  of  cognac  buried 
in  the  garden." 

Brent  pretended  to  be  shocked. 

"You  buried  them  ?" 

"Yes." 

"I  wonder  if  they  are  still  there.  The  Boche  had  a 
wonderful  sense  of  smell." 

"I  put  something  to  mark  the  place,  and  it  has  not 
been  touched." 

"Heavens,"  said  Brent,  "you  will  be  able  to  stock  your 
cellar.  What  a  good  thing  it  is  that  Paul  is  a  sober 
fellow.  But  I  should  like  to  remind  you,  madame,  that 
we  have  not  found  that  lime." 

"Did  I  not  tell  you  ?  I  found  a  heap  of  it  in  the  factory 
stable.  I  was  so  excited  about  the  ladder." 

"Something  very  terrible  is  going  to  happen  to  us.  We 
are  being  too  lucky." 


xn 

APTEE  dinner  they  held  a  council  of  war.  It  was  Manon 
who  opened  it,  Manon  the  woman,  the  housewife,  the 
Queen  of  the  Linen  and  the  Store  Cupboard. 

"I  shall  go  to  Amiens,"  she  said;  ''will  you  please 
give  me  my  note-book  ?" 

Brent  surrendered  it  to  her,  and  smoked  his  pipe,  while 
she  sat  biting  the  end  of  the  pencil,  a  very  serious  and  pre- 
occupied little  woman  whose  eyes  looked  at  the  mottled 
and  disfigured  face  of  the  stone  house  over  the  way,  and 
whose  right  hand  kept  jotting  down  notes  on  the  paper. 

"I  can  hire  a  pony  and  cart  at  Ste.  Claire.  Yes,  I 
will  go  to  Ste.  Claire  the  day  after  to-morrow,  and  I  shall 
stay  away  three  days.  There  are  so  many  things  that  we 
shall  need." 

Brent  sunned  himself  in  the  pleasant  seriousness  of 
her  enthusiasm.  Now  and  again  he  was  conscious  of  a 
moment  of  incredulity  as  he  watched  her  intent  face  with 
its  soft  curves  and  wreath  of  coal-black  hair.  Her  brown 
eyes  semed  to  be  looking  into  the  windows  of  the  magasins 
of  Amiens.  When  she  was  puzzled  or  in  doubt  she  tapped 
her  white  teeth  with  the  tend  of  the  pencil.  He  became 
aware  of  the  fact  that  he  himself  appeared  to  be  the  centre 
in  the  field  of  her  vision.  She  looked  at  his  pipe — his 
boots,  his  clothes,  with  the  critical  eyes  of  a  little  mother 
fitting  out  a  boy  for  school. 

"Potatoes!"  ' 

She  made  a  note  on  the  page. 

"I  have  to  think  of  your  health,"  she  said  with  wide- 
eyed  candour;  "it  is  necessary  for  a  man  to  have  good  food, 
a  little  fresh  meat  and  vegetables.    It  will  be  necessary  for 
me  to  go  marketing  once  a  week" 
74 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  75 

"Then  you  will  let  me  share." 

He  patted  his  pocket. 

She  looked  at  him  gravely  and  shook  her  head.        { 

"That  is  my  affair.  You  work,  I  find  the  food.  That 
is  my  part  of  the  partnership.  It  is  quite  reasonable." 

Brent  attempted  to  argue,  but  she  was  very  determined, 
and  she  had  her  way. 

"You  must  leave  me  some  share,  mon  ami.  It  would 
be  absurd  if  you  were  responsible  for  everything." 

"Now  tell  me.    What  do  you  require — most  urgently  ?" 

He  reflected. 

"A  good  saw." 

"Yes." 

"A  dictionary." 

"But  you  speak  almost  like  a  Frenchman." 

"I  haven't  all  the  words  I  want — the  names  of  things." 

She  made  a  note  of  the  dictionary. 

"Some  paint  and  brushes.  And  nails — nails  of  all  sizes, 
We  shall  eat  nails." 

When  she  had  completed  her  list  she  tore  out  the  leaf 
and  handed  the  note-book  back  to  Brent. 

"I  am  going  to  tidy  the  house,"  she  said. 

Brent  had  schemes  of  his  own.  He  went  out  and  paced 
the  length  and  breadth  of  the  cafe,  and  then  sat  down  on 
the  steps  of  the  stone  house  and  did  sums  on  paper.  He 
reckoned  that  he  would  need  some  hundred  sheets  of  cor- 
rugated iron  if  the  sheets  measured  six  feet  by  two  feet, 
and  allowing  for  overlap.  The  timber  for  the  rafters 
worked  out  at  720  feet.  Then  there  would  be  the  tie- 
pieces  and  battens.  He  saw,  too,  that  it  would  be  neces- 
sary to  fit  bedding-plates  for  the  rafters  to  bear  upon  along 
the  tops  of  the  walls.  That  was  a  problem  that  sent  him 
wandering  through  Beaucourt  on  another  voyage  of  dis- 
covery. 

In  an  alley  behind  the  Post  Oifice  Brent  found  a  dump 
of  pit-props  and  railway  sleepers.  The  sleepers  were  seven 
feet  in  length,  well  squared,  and  in  good  condition,  the 
very  material  he  needed  for  his  bedding-plates.  He  spent 


76  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

an  hour  shouldering  a  dozen  of  them  across  to  the  Cafe  de 
la  Victoire,  and  stacking  them  in  one  of  the  rooms  on  the 
right  of  the  passage.  Brent  was  shaping  his  plans  with  a 
forethought  that  contemplated  a  complete  assembling  of 
all  the  necessary  material.  He  was  not  fool  enough  to  be- 
gin building  before  he  had  made  sure  of  his  resources. 

Seeing  nothing  of  Manon,  he  went  to  explore  the  Rue 
de  Bonniere  between  the  Post  Office  and  the  factory. 
There  were  some  biggish  houses  on  the  north  of  the  street, 
and  the  remains  of  a  few  shops.  Brent  worked  through  the 
houses,  making  notes  of  anything  that  might  be  usefully 
borrowed.  In  what  appeared  to  have  been  the  yard  of  a 
local  builder  of  Beaucourt,  Brent  found  the  head  of  a  fell- 
ing axe  and  a  bricklayer's  rusty  trowel.  A  carpenter^ 
saw  was  the  one  thing  he  coveted,  but  Beaucourt  baulked 
him  in  the  matter  of  a  saw.  He  collected  a  coil  of  stout 
telephone  wire,  a  French  shovel,  and  the  head  of  a  hoe; 
but  it  was  in  the  backyard  of  the  last  house  that  he  made 
his  great  find. 

In  one  corner  of  the  yard,  an  old  gig  with  black  and 
yellow  wheels  was  standing  with  its  shafts  uptilted,  like 
a  praying  mantis.  Dash-board  and  seat  were  gone,  and 
three  of  the  spokes  were  broken  in  one  wheel,  but  Brent's 
brain  rushed  to  imagine  the  uses  of  such  a  vehicle.  He 
got  hold  of  the  shafts,  and  found  that  the  gig  could  be 
trundled  quite  successfully;  it  was  light,  and  the  injured 
wheel  would  function,  provided  that  too  much  was  not 
expected  of  it.  Brent  dragged  the  gig  out  of  the  yard  and 
round  into  the  Rue  Romaine,  and  in  the  Rue  Romaine  he 
met  Manon. 

She  was  coming  out  of  the  ruins  of  Grandmere  Vitry'a 
cottage,  carrying  the  picture  of  the  Sacre  Cceur.  She  saw 
Brent  between  the  shafts  of  the  gig,  lugging  it  along  with 
an  air  of  triumph.  He  pulled  up — out  of  breath,  for  he 
had  been  trundling  the  gig  up-hill. 

"Transport,"  he  said ;  "here  it  is.  The  very  thing  for 
carting  our  iron  and  timber." 

Her  delight  was  as  great  as  his,  and  therein  lay  the 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  77 

secret  of  this  little  woman's  charm.  She  reacted  with  the 
freshness  and  buoyancy  of  a  healthy  child,  and  her  tem- 
peramental and  French  expressiveness  made  her  an  ex- 
quisite playmate. 

"But — it  is  a  triumph  I  Yes,  the  doctor's  old  gig,  with 
the  wheels  that  made  you  think  the  sun  was  shining." 

"I'm  borrowing  it,"  said  Brent  with  a  wink;  "I'm 
borrowing  everything." 

She  showed  him  her  picture. 

"I  shall  take  care  of  this  for  Madame  Vitry.  It  was 
so  sad  to  see  it  hanging  there.  Now  then,  you  between 
the  shafts  pull,  and  I'll  push." 

The  gig  went  up  the  hill  with  great  briskness  between 
the  laughing  and  chattering  pair  of  them.  They  ran  it 
into  the  yard,  and  examined  it  there  with  much  pride, 
Brent  explaining  how  he  could  load  the  timber  and  iron 
from  the  huts,  and  run  his  improvised  truck  down  the 
slightly  sloping  Rue  de  Rosieres. 

Manon  had  had  triumphs  of  her  own.  She  took  Paul 
into  the  house  with  a  dramatic  gesture. 

"Voila!" 

He  saw  a  couple  of  chairs,  one  of  them  the  arm-chair 
from  the  ecole,  a  real  table,  and  upon  it  a  collection  of 
glass  and  china.  There  were  cups,  plates,  dishes,  tumblers, 
wine-glasses,  forks,  spoons,  even  a  couple  of  rusty  knives. 
A  china  candlestick  was  included.  On  the  floor  stood  a  big 
earthenware  bread-pan,  a  kettle,  and  an  old  tin  bath. 

"Magnificent,"  said  Brent. 

"Borrowed — like  your  gig,"  she  added,  with  a  look  of 
mischief. 

"There  are  times,  madame,  when  it  does  not  do  to 
be  too  particular." 

"Ah,  I  have  a  piece  of  work  for  you — to-morrow.  I 
have  found  my  own  kitchen  stove.  It  is  in  the  ecole." 

"No  time  like  the  present  I'll  collect  it  with  the 
barrow." 

"It  takes  to  bits,  mon  ami.  You  will  find  it  in  the 
ground-floor  room  on  the  left." 


78  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

"Map  reference  not  required.    I  go — toute  de  suite." 

So  Brent  went  out  again  into  the  ruins  of  Beaucourt  and 
worked  till  the  red  sun  set  alight  the  beeches  of  the  Bois  du 
Renard  and  the  sky  was  a  steely  blue  above  his  head. 
Brent  had  been  exploring  the  chateau  on  the  hill,  and 
he  stood  on  the  grass-grown  drive,  with  the  grass  crisping 
with  frost  under  his  feet.  He  heard  a  partridge  calling 
to  its  mate,  a  harsh  but  plaintive  sound  in  the  great 
silence. 

A  sudden  solemnity  fell  upon  Brent.  He  looked  out 
over  the  wooded  country  purpling  in  the  hollow  of  the  up- 
rolling  night.  The  redness  began  to  die  down  beyond 
the  Bois  du  Renard.  Presently  a  star  flickered  out.  The 
air  was  very  cold,  and  Brent's  breath  a  patch  of  silver 
vapour. 

The  beauty  and  strangeness  of  it  all  seemed  like  the 
fall  of  a  curtain  at  the  end  of  that  most  wonderful  day. 
Brent  could  hardly  believe  that  so  much  had  happened  in 
ten  short  hours,  those  extraordinary  hours  full  to  the  brim 
with  inevitable  adventure.  He  turned  his  head  to  look 
down  at  Beaucourt,  a  ghost  village  melting  slowly  into  the 
dusk,  a  pattern  of  broken  walls  and  gables,  patches  of 
whiteness,  shadowy  hollows  like  the  eye-sockets  of  a  skull. 
Brent  saw  a  light  shine  out,  a  little  yellow  square  in  the 
darkness,  solitary  and  strange.  It  was  the  light  in  the 
Cafe  de  la  Victoire — Manon's  light. 

Brent  did  an  absurd  thing.  He  took  off  his  cap  to  it 
— uncovered  his  head. 

"Home,"  he  said;  "how  queer!" 

His  footsteps  seemed  to  make  a  great  noise  in  the  silent 
village  as  he  walked  back  through  the  still,  cold  night — 
but  Brent  did  not  feel  the  cold,  for  his  heart  was  warm  in 
him,  Manon  was  whistling,  whistling  like  a  blackbird; 
the  sound  came  out  of  the  cellar,  a  cellar  that  was  full  of 
the  glow  from  the  stove. 

She  heard  his  footsteps  up  above  and  ran  to  the  step*. 

"It  is  you?" 

"Yes." 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  79 

"Come  down.    Supper  is  ready." 

He  hesitated  at  the  head  of  the  stairs,  a  man  grown 
suddenly  shy. 

"May  I  ?    It  is  your  cellar." 

"Do  not  be  foolish,"  she  said;  "I  have  cooked  you 
a  hot  supper." 

That  wonderful  day  drew  to  a  close.  Manon  and  Paul 
were  tired,  wholesomely  and  happily  tired,  and  they 
ended  the  day  by  arguing  about  the  blankets. 

"One  each,"  said  Manon. 

"You  can  have  both." 

"Then  I  will  have  neither." 

"My  greatcoat  is  enough  for  me." 

"Mon  ami,"  she  said,  "if  you  think  that  I  am  going 
to  let  you  sleep  up  there  under  a  bit  of  tin  with  nothing 
but  your  coat,  you  are  a  little  touched  in  the  head.  Take 
your  blanket,  at  once,  and  do  not  argue." 

Brent  surrendered.  He  bade  her  good-night  and  went 
upstairs,  taking  his  bag  for  a  pillow.  He  made  a  sack  of 
his  blanket,  crept  into  it,  and  settled  himself  on  the  creak- 
ing wire  bed  under  the  four  pieces  of  corrugated  iron. 
Through  the  window  he  could  see  the  stars  shining  over 
Beaucourt,  clear,  frosty  stars. 

Brent  pulled  his  greatcoat  over  his  head,  and  slept  in 
spite  of  the  cold. 


Xlil 

MANON  did  not  wake  very  early,  and  rays  of  sunlight 
were  thrusting  like  sword  blades  through  the  iron  grating 
when  she  opened  her  eyes. 

The  cellar  was  warm,  and  the  wire  bed  surprisingly 
comfortable,  and  Manon  lay  curled  up,  looking  at  the 
yellow  light  and  feeling  in  no  hurry  to  leave  the  brd. 

"Another  fine  day,"  she  said;  "I  wonder  if  the  man  ia 
still  asleep." 

She  became  aware  of  a  thudding  sound  coming  from 
the  back  of  the  house,  a  sound  that  associated  itself  with 
ideas  of  work — strenuous  work  on  a  frosty  morning. 
Manon  felt  guilty.  She  had  a  vision  of  Paul  warming  him- 
self after  a  night  spent  with  one  blanket  under  a  tin  roof, 
and  she  jumped  up  and  lit  the  stove.  She  had  decided  to 
give  him  hot  coffee. 

When  the  stove  was  well  alight,  she  brought  a  comb  and 
a  little  mirror  out  of  her  bag  and  put  up  her  hair.  She 
had  slept  in  her  clothes,  and  however  much  she  disliked 
the  feeling  of  it,  she  realized  that  such  things  as  blankets 
bulk  big  in  any  scheme  of  civilization,  and  that  without 
blankets  a  woman's  sense  of  daintiness  might  not  be  able 
to  survive. 

"I  must  go  to  Amiens,"  she  reflected,  as  she  washed 
her  hands  and  face  in  an  old  tin  basin  half  full  of  cold 
water ;  "but  what  a  pity  that  things  are  so  dear." 

The  stove  needed  more  wood,  and  she  went  up  in  search 
of  her  partner,  discovering  him  in  the  yard,  breaking 
up  boxes  with  a  pick. 

"You  poor  man,"  she  said,  "are  you  frozen?" 

"I  had  to  thaw  my  feet  and  hands,"  he  laughed,  "but 
life  is  devilish  good." 

"We  will  change  all  that — not  the  devilish  good  part 
80 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  81 

of  it,  Monsieur  Paul.  There  will  be  hot  coffee  in  ten 
minutes." 

"I  am  going  to  splice  that  ladder  before  breakfast." 

"That  is  permitted.  But  after  that,  you  will  take  a 
holiday." 

He  thought  that  she  was  joking. 

"A  holiday — with  ten  hours'  work." 

"It  is  Sunday,"  she  said. 

"That  is  news  to  me.  I  had  forgotten  the  days  of 
the  week." 

"Yes — Sunday.    And  I  am  going  to  church." 

"All  the  way  to  Ste.  Claire  ?" 

"No!  here  in  Beaucourt.  The  church  is  still  there. 
And  I  suppose  le  bon  Dieu  was  not  driven  away  by  shells." 

"I  shall  come  with  you,"  said  Paul;  "it  won't  do  me 
any  harm." 

It  was  no  formal  ceremony  that  church-going,  no  affair 
of  greased  forelocks,  polished  boots  and  conventional 
self-suppression.  Manon  chattered  all  the  way  up  the 
deserted  street — buoyant  as  the  February  sunshine,  talk- 
ing about  this  romance  of  reconstruction  with  a  frank 
enthusiasm  that  accepted  God  as  an  interested  listener. 
Even  the  battered  church  with  its  stump  of  a  spire,  and 
white  wounds  showing  in  its  grey  bulk,  was  a  thing  of  life 
and  of  hope.  God  had  shared  with  these  peasants  in  the 
tragedy  of  their  ruined  homes.  That  was  how  Manon 
visualized  it.  The  Great  Mother  stood  there  amid  the 
rubbish,  stretching  out  her  beneficent  and  understanding 
hands.  The  glass  had  gone ;  there  were  holes  in  the  roof, 
and  patches  of  damp  on  the  walls;  the  tracery  of  the 
windows  had  had  the  beauty  of  its  Gothic  curves  snapped 
and  broken.  Yet  this  church  of  Beaucourt  seemed  to  have 
won  a  deeper  mystery — the  ineffable  smile  of  a  martyr, 
the  beautiful  exultation  that  no  clever  devilry  can  kill. 

Manon  paused  in  the  Place  de  FEglise.  She  was  silent 
now,  wide-eyed,  serious.  She  made  the  sign  of  the  cross 
as  she  looked  up  at  the  broken  spire. 

"It  is  still  very  beautiful.    Let  us  go  in." 


82  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

The  church  of  Beaucourt  had  served  many  purposes. 
It  had  been  a  hospital,  a  supply  store,  a  stable,  and  it 
carried  the  stigmata  of  all  these  experiences  upon  its  stones. 
Soldiers  had  scribbled  on  its  walls,  driven  in  nails,  left 
lewd  phrases  strung  upon  the  plaster.  Whenever  it  rained 
there  were  puddles  on  the  floor.  Rubbish  and  smashed 
masonry  choked  the  aisles.  Someone  had  slept  on  the 
altar  and  left  a  dirty  mattress  there,  but  the  Gothic  mys- 
tery remained,  the  awe,  that  invisible  something  that  is 
like  the  sigh  of  an  invisible  god. 

Brent  followed  Manon  into  the  church,  uncovering  his 
head  as  she  dipped  a  finger  into  the  imaginary  water  of  the 
piscina,  and  made  her  little  obeisance  to  the  altar.  She 
knelt  down  on  the  stone  floor,  and  Brent  knelt  down  beside 
her.  She  remained  thus  for  some  minutes,  eyes  closed, 
hands  folded, — but  Brent  did  not  close  his  eyes — for  his 
religion  was  centred  in  Manon.  Brent  was  just  the  or- 
dinary man,  supremely  indifferent  to  dogmatic  religion, 
well  able  to  live  without  it,  rather  mistrustful  of  the  so- 
called  religious  people.  But  Manon's  kneeling  figure 
touched  his  sense  of  the  beauty  of  human  emotion.  Her 
simple  devoutness  had  the  charm  of  a  pleasant  picture. 
It  added  mystery  to  her,  made  her  eyes  more  than  mere 
mirrors  of  consciousness,  her  blood  more  than  a  red  and 
vitalizing  fluid.  Brent  had  always  been  something  of  a 
mystic,  a  man  who  had  disliked  his  mysticism  reduced  to 
printer's  ink  and  pews. 

A  light  breeze  had  sprung  up.  It  played  through  the 
broken  tracery  of  the  windows  and  through  the  rents  in 
the  roof,  making  a  soft  and  plaintive  murmur  like  the  rush 
of  invisible  wings.  Manon  opened  her  eyes,  raised  her 
head  and  smiled.  Her  face  made  Brent  think  of  white 
light.  He  felt  that  he  could  trust  Manon  as  very  few 
women  can  be  trusted ;  she  had  not  the  hard  little  soul  of 
the  modern  girl;  she  would  understand  a  man's  finer 
impulses;  she  would  not  shock  him  with  some  sudden 
little  blasphemous  confession  of  crude  and  vulgar  egotism. 
And  yet  he  realized  that  she  was  no  fool. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  83 

She  crossed  herself,  stood  up,  and  brushed  the  dirt 
from  her  black  skirt.  It  was  the  practical,  pleasantly 
dainty  little  Frenchwoman  who  reappeared. 

"They  need  a  broom  here.  And  what  a  bill  there  will 
be  for  glass!" 

They  passed  out  again  into  the  sunlight. 

"It  was  good  of  you  to  come  with  me.  In  these  days 
men  are  not  devout;  they  have  other  things  to  think  of. 
A.re  you  a  Catholic,  mon  ami  ?" 

Brent  hesitated. 

"No,  to  be  perfectly  honest." 

And  then  she  surprised  him. 

"Do  not  worry  your  conscience.  When  I  go  to  church, 
it  is  not  because  I  am  this  or  that,  but  because  I  know  there 
is  a  God,  and  that  life  is  a  mystery,  and  that  one  should 
kneel  down  and  feel  things  and  try  to  understand.  I  am 
not  a  religious  woman,  as  the  priests  would  have  it,  nor 
am  I  a  Catholic.  Religious  women  are  often  not  good 
women — as  I  understand  goodness." 

"You  are  full  of  surprises,"  he  said. 

She  gave  him  a  shrewd  little  smile. 

"I  went  to  a  good  school,  Paul.  Do  you  think  that 
because  I  live  in  a  village  I  have  been  brought  up  in  a  con- 
vent? We  French  are  very  practical;  we  think  a  great 
deal.  But  I  am  not  a  little  fool  who  imagines  that  she 
understands  everything.  One  must  have  a  religion,  and  it 
is  none  the  worse  if  you  make  it  yourself.  Never  to  do 
mean  things,  and  never  to  grow  hard.  And  to  remember 
• — always — that  one's  orchard  and  garden  are  miracles,  and 
that  life  did  not  happen  by  chance." 

Brent  had  put  on  his  cap.     He  took  it  off  again. 

"You  get  to  the  heart  of  things,"  he  said. 

Directly  ahead  of  them,  and  half  closing  the  east  end 
of  the  Place  de  1'Eglise,  were  the  ruins  of  the  Hotel  de 
Paris.  The  hotel  stood  at  the  corner  where  the  Rue 
d'Eschelle  ran  steeply  down  to  the  river,  a  big  white  place, 
its  angles  and  cornice  of  faced  ashlar,  its  great  central 
chimney-stack  still  standing  up  red  and  raw.  On  the  other 


84  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

side  of  the  street  the  Hospice  towered  up  like  a  ragged  grey 
cliff  that  looked  ready  to  fall. 

Manon  walked  towards  the  Hotel  de  Paris.  The  ruins 
had  a  particular  significance  for  her,  for  the  hotel  had 
belonged  to  Monsieur  Louis  Blanc,  vulgarly  known  as 
Bibi.  Manon  had  had  cause  to  regard  Monsieur  Louis 
Blanc  with  peculiar  distrust  and  aversion.  He  had  been, 
her  rival,  and  he  had  desired  also  to  be  her  lover;  the 
intrigue  would  have  suited  both  his  body  and  his  business, 

"I  must  tell  you  about  Bibi." 

Then  they  looked  at  each  other,  for  someone  waa 
trampling  over  the  piles  of  broken  brick  inside  the  shell  of 
the  Hotel  de  Paris.  The  sound  came  towards  them.  A 
tall  man  appeared  in  the  doorway,  a  man  wearing  a  soft 
black  hat,  a  black  coat,  and  the  blue  breeches  and  puttees  of 
a  French  soldier.  He  stood  and  smiled  and  took  off  his  hat. 

"Good  morning,  Madame  Latour." 

Manon's  face  became  a  thing  of  stone. 

"Good  morning,  Monsieur  Blanc.  A  fine  day  for  the 
ruins,  is  it  not  ?" 

Bibi  was  looking  at  Brent  with  a  peculiar  and  cynical 
curiosity. 

"I  have  muddled  the  name,  have  I  ?  Madame  is  no 
longer  a  widow." 

Manon  snubbed  him. 

"I  will  leave  you  to  guess,  monsieur." 

Bibi  laughed.  He  was  a  sallow-faced  man  with  a  pair 
of  insolent,  light  blue  eyes,  a  nose  that  broadened  out 
towards  the  nostrils  in  the  shape  of  a  green  fig,  and  a 
mouth  that  looked  as  though  it  had  been  hacked  out  in  the 
rough  and  never  finished.  He  had  a  way  of  staring  people 
in  the  face  with  a  faintly  ironical  smile,  a  smile  that  put 
them  down  in  the  mud.  He  looked  very  strong  with  the 
strength  of  a  great,  raw-boned,  nasty-tempered  horse.  The 
backs  of  his  hands  were  covered  with  black  hair. 

"Perhaps  monsieur  is  less  proud?" 

He  looked  at  Brent,  cocking  one  shoulder  up,  and  tilting 
.his  head.  But  Brent  said  nothing.  He  was  trying  to 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  85 

explain  his  own  instant  feeling  of  antipathy  towards  the 
man,  and  an  instinctive  desire  to  hit  Monsieur  Bibi  hard 
and  square  between  the  eyes.  It  was  not  that  the  man  was 
evil.  Brent  had  lived  with  evil  men,  and  they  had  not 
troubled  his  temper.  And  then  he  struck  it.  It  was 
Bibi's  swagger,  the  arrogance  of  the  male  thing  who  had 
had  many  successes  with  women.  Bibi  was  one  great 
swagger.  He  swaggered  when  he  smiled,  when  he  talked, 
even  when  he  stood  still.  His  very  silence  swaggered. 
And  Brent  had  a  suspicion  that  it  was  not  a  thing  of  wind 
and  brass — but  a  huge  self-confidence,  an  audacity  that 
took  life  in  its  hands  and  laid  it  next  the  wall. 

And  then  Brent  remembered  that  he  had  not  chosen  a 
French  name.  He  pulled  out  his  pipe,  filled  it,  and  looked 
at  Bibi  across  the  top  of  the  bowl  as  he  struck  a  match. 

"Here  is  my  fiancee,  monsieur.    An  English  girl,  too !" 

Bibi's  eyes  snapped.  He  saw  the  joke,  and  he  had 
learnt  something  that  he  wished  to  know.  He  matched 
Brent's  pipe  with  a  cigarette,  and  stood  there,  ugly,  polite 
and  conversational.  Manon's  face  remained  a  thing  of 
stone.  She  knew  how  clever  Bibi  was — abominably  clever, 
and  she  wanted  to  warn  Brent. 

"So  you  have  returned,  monsieur?" 

Bibi  had  a  suspicion  that  she  was  trying  to  put  herself 
between  him  and  the  other  man. 

"Just  to  view  the  scenery,  madame.  I  drove  over  alone; 
the  cart  and  horse  are  in  the  factory  stable.  Is  it  possible 
that  I  may  have  the  pleasure  of  driving  you  home  ?" 

"I  remain  here,"  she  said. 

"Tiens ! — Monsieur,  perhaps  ?" 

"He  is  staying  here  too,"  said  Manon  with  stubborn 
composure. 

Bibi  shngged.    He  had  learnt  something  more 

"You  are  more  lucky  than  I  am,  madame ;  you  have  a 
partner." 

"Yes;  it  is  an  excellent  arrangement.  We  have  come 
to  see  what  can  be  done — but  all  this  is  rather  hopeless,  is 
it  not?" 


86  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

She  nodded  at  the  ruined  hotel.  Bibi  inflated  himself, 
spat,  smiled  at  her. 

"I  shall  have  that  up  in  no  time.  Pst ! — just  like  that ! 
The  bigger  the  job,  the  bigger  I  feel." 

And  Manon  smiled  on  him. 

"You  always  were  a  man  of  resources,  monsieur.  I 
shall  have  to  be  content  with  a  shanty,  a  couple  of  rooms, 
• — what  we  can  knock  together.  And  now  I  have  the  fire 
to  attend  to ;  the  blankets  are  damp ;  Monsieur  Paul  dis- 
covered them  in  a  cottage.  Au  revoir,  monsieur." 

Bibi's  hat  swaggered  to  her. 

"Be  very  careful  of  those  blankets,"  he  said. 

Manon  did  not  speak  to  Paul  until  they  were  half-way 
up  the  Rue  de  Picardie. 

"Well!— that  is  Monsieur  Bibi,"  she  said;  "what  do 
you  think  of  him  ?" 

"A  beast." 

His  frankness  brought  back  her  animation. 

"Yes,  you  are  right — a  beast — and  a  clever  beast.  Did 
you  see  how  he  was  trying  to  find  out ?" 

"I  ought  to  have  a  French  name,"  said  Brent;  "how 
would  Paul  Ranee  do  ?  It  is  a  river — somewhere.  And  if 
inquisitive  people  ask  questions,  and  worry  about  my 
accent  you  can  tell  them — or  I  will — that  I  lived  for  seven 
years  in  England." 

Manon  nodded. 

"It  is  possible  that  we  shall  have  trouble  with  Bibi. 
He  has  a  grudge  against  me." 

"What  sort  of  a  grudge  ?"  Brent  asked. 

"He  wanted  to  buy  my  cafe — because  too  many  people 
came  to  it." 

"Yes." 

Manon  remained  silent  for  a  moment.  She  was  thinking. 

"Mon  ami,"  she  exclaimed,  "I  shall  not  go  to  Ste. 
Claire  to-morrow.  I  shall  stay  here  several  days.  There 
is  no  time  to  be  lost,  and  I  can  help  you.  We  must  take 
what  we  need  before  Bibi  thieves  everything." 


XIV 

THEY  entered  the  cafe  and  sat  down  on  the  two  wooden 
chairs  that  Manon  had  salved  from  one  of  the  houses. 
The  coming  of  Bibi  had  introduced  a  sudden  sinister  com- 
plexity into  the  adventure,  an  element  of  discord,  a  threat 
of  competition.  Brent  refilled  his  pipe.  He  looked 
worried. 

"We  had  better  begin  on  those  huts,"  he  said;  'Til 
get  the  tools  together  and  go  down  at  once." 

Manon  restrained  him. 

"No,  not  yet.    We  must  wait." 

"Till  that  fellow  has  gone?" 

She  nodded. 

"Bibi  is  cunning.  He  has  come  here  to  see  what  he  can 
find — and  there  is  no  generosity  to  be  expected  from  Bibi. 
We  must  not  betray  what  we  are  doing.  When  he  has 
driven  off  in  that  cart  of  his,  then  we  can  work  like  slaves." 

"There  will  be  a  moon  to-night,"  said  Brent;  "I  shall 
work  all  night.  We  must  store  the  sheeting  in  one  of 
those  rooms,  and  I  will  get  two  doors  and  some  shutters 
fitted  at  the  first  chance." 

Manon  held  up  a  hand. 

"Listen!" 

They  heard  a  man's  boots  clanking  on  the  pave. 

"I  knew  he  would  come  here." 

Monsieur  Louis  Blanc  did  not  stop  outside  the  Cafe  de 
la  Victoire.  He  strolled  past  it  with  the  detached  and 
casual  air  of  a  holiday-maker,  nodding  at  Manon  who 
stood  at  the  window. 

"Even  if  you  have  no  wine,  madame — they  tell  me 
there  is  plenty  of  good  water  in  the  well." 

"Yes,  there  is  plenty  of  water." 
87 


88  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

He  paused  for  a  second — his  hands  in  his  pockets,  his 
eyes  considering  the  house. 

"You  have  been  lucky." 

"Ah,  monsieur,  lucky !  I  have  four  walls  and  an  abun- 
dance of  ventilation." 

"I  have  two  walls  and  half  a  wall.  Just  because  my 
little  hotel  was  too  near  the  church !  We  always  shelled 
churches,  you  know,  just  to  give  le  bon  Dieu  a  personal 
interest  in  the  affair." 

He  laughed  and  walked  on. 

Manon  waited  till  he  had  disappeared  down  the  Rue 
de  Rosieres,  and  then  ran  out  into  the  garden.  She  knew 
that  from  one  corner  of  the  garden  it  was  possible  to  see 
the  field  where  those  precious  huts  stood,  but  though  she 
remained  on  the  watch,  the  figure  of  Louis  Blanc  never 
appeared  in  the  field.  Brent,  who  was  equally  interested 
in  the  pilgrimage  of  Monsieur  Bibi,  went  across  to  the 
stone  house  over  the  way,  and  saw  the  Frenchman  turn 
back  before  he  had  reached  the  end  of  the  Rue  de  Rosieres. 
Bibi  stopped  to  look  at  the  well,  gave  a  casual  glance  a^ 
the  cafe,  and  diverging  into  the  Rue  Romaine,  walked  off 
towards  the  factory. 

Brent  followed  him,  keeping  to  the  orchards  and  the 
gardens  behind  the  houses.  The  ruins  of  the  cottage 
nearest  to  the  factory  served  him  as  an  observation  post, 
and  Brent  did  not  quit  it  till  he  saw  Bibi  driving  off  in  his 
cart  along  the  road  to  Bonniere. 

Brent  ran  back  to  the  cafe. 

"He  has  gone,"  he  said,  reaching  under  the  wire  bed 
for  the  box  in  which  he  kept  his  tools. 

Manon  was  ready. 

"He  did  not  see  those  huts." 

"I  think  Bibi  was  looking  at  something  else,"  said 
Brent;  "your  cafe." 

It  is  probable  that  no  salvage  party  ever  worked  as 
Paul  and  Manon  did,  stripping  the  corrugated  iron  from 
those  army  huts  in  the  field  on  the  road  to  Rosieres.  They 
dragged  the  yellow  gig  up  the  hill,  and  Manon  loaded  it, 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE  89 

while  Brent  used  hammer,  cold  chisel  and  tommy  bar, 
and  slid  the  loosened  sheets  down  to  her  from  the  roof. 
They  made  a  fine  and  healthy  clatter  between  them  on 
that  Sunday  afternoon,  but  as  there  was  no  one  in  Beau- 
court  to  hear  it,  no  one  was  offended.  Brent  allowed 
twenty  sheets  to  a  load,  remembering  the  weak  wheel  of 
the  gig.  Then  they  set  off  for  the  cafe,  Brent  between  the 
shafts,  Manon  pushing  behind,  the  load  banging  and  clat- 
tering as  the  gig  bumped  over  the  pave.  They  carted  two 
such  loads  before  breaking  off  for  dinner,  a  meal  that 
lasted  less  than  twenty  minutes. 

"Forty  sheets.  That  was  pretty  quick  work.  We  want 
a  hundred." 

He  had  lit  his  pipe,  and  was  glancing  humorously  at 
the  bloody  finger  and  knuckles  of  his  left  hand. 

"Nasty  stuff  to  handle.    And  I  was  in  a  hurry." 

"You  worked  like  a  devil,"  she  said. 

"I'm  fresh  to  the  tools.    Show  me  your  hands." 

Manon  had  a  slight  cut  across  her  left  palm. 

"You  ought  to  have  gloves." 

"I'm  not  afraid  of  a  cut  or  two." 

"Look  here,  I  can  manage  alone  this  afternoon.  Sup- 
posing you  collect  bricks  for  these  two  holes  in  the  wall  f" 

She  refused  to  do  any  such  thing. 

"Do  you  think  that  I  am  some  soft  little  cat  from  a  villa 
in  Paris  ?  I  used  to  dig  and  hoe  all  my  garden  during  the 
war,  and  I  can  carry  a  sack  of  potatoes  if  someone  puta 
it  on  my  back.  I  don't  cry  off  because  of  a  scratched 
hand." 

Brent  liked  her  pluck  and  determination. 

"Put  a  sandbag  over  each  hand.  There  are  some  in  the 
cellar.  I  don't  want  you  with  your  arm  in  a  sling." 

As  he  crawled  about  the  roof,  wrenching  off  the  iron 
sheets  and  sending  them  skiddering  down  to  Manon,  Paul 
was  troubled  by  the  face  of  Louis  Blanc.  The  adventure 
had  ceased  to  be  an  exciting  game  played  by  two  grown-up 
children ;  it  had  taken  on  more  primitrwe  colours,  colours 
that  had  not  the  innocence  of  the  brown  eyes  and  red  lips 


90  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE 

of  Manon,  of  the  purple  of  the  woods  and  the  grey  green 
of  the  fields.  The  world  and  Monsieur  Bibi  had  come 
swaggering  together  into  Beaucourt,  and  Brent  was  con- 
scious of  the  unpleasant  significance  of  the  event. 

Straddling  the  ridge  of  the  roof,  and  looking  at  the 
chequer  of  red  and  white  walls,  the  shadowy  interspaces 
and  the  patches  of  broad  sunlight  that  were  Beaucourt, 
Brent  realized  that  he  had  become  responsible  for  Manon. 
He  felt  that  she  belonged  to  him,  which  of  course  was 
absurd.  Less  than  two  days  of  close  comradeship  did  not 
justify  a  sense  of  possession,  and  yet  the  instinctive  fierce- 
ness of  the  feeling  astonished  Brent.  "Why  this  bristling 
of  the  hair,  this  clenching  of  the  fist  ?  He  had  no  difficulty 
in  finding  an  answer. 

But  a  far  more  sensitive  and  unselfish  mood  forced 
itself  in  front  of  these  primitive  emotions.  Brent  sat  and 
looked  into  the  face  of  his  own  past,  a  past  that  conjured 
up  the  present  and  the  future.  The  coming  of  Bibi  had 
made  all  the  difference  in  the  world  to  Brent's  outlook  upon 
life.  A  cloud  had  wiped  the  irresponsible  and  un-self- 
conscious  sunlight  from  the  landscape.  This  polite  and 
clever  blackguard  had  reintroduced  the  social  compact  into 
Beaucourt.  The  village  had  ceased  to  be  a  wilderness, 
Wen  though  Louis  Blanc's  presence  in  it  had  been  a  mere 
matter  of  hours.  His  appearance  was  more  than  a  sug- 
gestion. Society  had  returned  in  the  spirit,  even  if  it 
remained  absent  in  the  flesh,  and  Brent  saw  Beaucourt 
full  of  eyes,  mouths,  ears  and  heads. 

His  thoughts  centred  upon  Manon.  What  would  Bibi 
tell  people,  those  refugees  scattered  through  the  villages 
beyond  the  region  of  devastation  ?  Brent  knew  how  a  man 
of  Bibi's  kidney  would  talk.  "Oh,  yes,  Manon  Latour  is 
living  at  Beaucourt  with  some  fellow."  Brent  swore  to 
himself — but  swearing  did  not  solve  the  problem.  He  had 
discovered  that  he  was  responsible  for  Manon,  even  though 
he  knew  in  his  heart  of  hearts  that  this  adventure  promised 
to  be  the  cleanest  and  most  beautiful  thing  that  had  ever 
happened  to  him  in  life. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVEJSTTUKE  91 

"Hallo!" 

For  the  best  part  of  a  minute  he  had  been  straddling 
the  ridge,  staring  at  a  hole  in  one  of  the  iron  sheets,  and 
doing  nothing.  Manon  was  waiting.  His  inactivity  was 
so  sudden  and  so  obvious  that  it  touched  her  curiosity. 

"Tired?" 

He  leant  forward  and  knocked  off  the  head  of  a  screw 
with  the  chisel  and  hammer. 

"No.    Thinking." 

"You  looked  like  murder." 

"I  dare  say  I  did." 

He  loosened  another  sheet  and  slid  it  down  to  her,  but 
she  let  it  lie  untouched,  and  stood  looking  gravely  up  at 
him. 

"You  were  thinking  about  Bibi  ?" 

He  moved  along  the  roof  to  attack  the  next  sheet. 

"Well,  perhaps  I  was." 

"What  does  Bibi  matter,  when  we  are  getting  all  that 
we  want  ?" 

Brent  raised  his  hammer  and  let  it  fall  again. 

"It  has  made  a  difference." 

"What  has  ?" 

"His  coming  here." 

Her  eyes  had  gone  black  and  opaque,  as  was  their  way 
when  she  was  seriously  puzzled  or  troubled.  It  was  plain 
to  her  that  something  was  clogging  Paul's  mind  and  ham- 
pering his  work. 

"What  kind  of  difference  ?" 

Brent  was  frowning. 

"Don't  you  see  what  has  happened?  I  am  not  a  fool 
who  goes  out  to  look  for  trouble,  but  we  are  not  alone  here 
any  longer.  A  man  has  to  think  of  these  things." 

Her  eyes  gave  a  flash. 

"Good  heavens — you  mean ?" 

"Well,  what  sort  of  man  is  Bibi  ?  Was  he  pleased  to 
find  me  here  ?" 

"You  mean  that  you  are  afraid, — you  want  to  go?" 

Brent  slogged  the  head  off  a  nail. 


92  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

"Damn! — I  never  thought  you  would  think  that! 
What  the  devil  do  I  care  what  happens  to  me?  But 
what  I  do  care  about " 

She  caught  her  breath  with  a  little  breathless  exclama- 
tion that  was  almost  like  a  cry  of  pain. 

"Oh,  it's  like  that?  I  understand — you  will  forgive 
me,  mon  ami  ?" 

He  looked  down  at  her  with  eyes  that  had  a  queer 
•bine  in  them. 

"If  you  will  forgive  me  for  swearing!" 

Brent  went  on  with  the  work.  It  was  the  obvious 
thing  to  do,  and  it  was  a  screen  behind  which  he  could 
hide,  for  Brent  was  one  of  those  men  who  became  absurdly 
ihy  in  the  presence  of  emotion.  He  hammered  away 
with  indefatigable  ferocity,  ignoring  Manon  who  was 
stroking  her  chin  with  two  fingers  and  looking  at  some- 
thing that  was  a  long  way  off. 

Presently  she  resumed  her  loading  of  the  gig,  nor  did 
ahe  speak  again  till  she  had  dealt  with  all  the  eheets  that 
Brent  had  pushed  down  to  her. 

"Twenty,"  she  said,  "we  have  a  load." 

Brent  slid  down  the  roof,  landed,  and  put  himself 
between  the  shafts  of  the  gig.  Manon  took  her  place 
behind  it,  and  they  started  out  of  the  field. 

"Paul,"  said  her  voice,  just  when  they  were  on  the 
edge  of  the  pave. 

"Hallo." 

"I  am  not  afraid  of  Bibi." 

The  rattle  of  the  wheels  and  the  clanging  of  the  iron 
sheets  made  it  difficult  for  Brent  to  hear  her. 

"What  did  you  say  ?" 

"I  am  not  afraid  of  Bibi." 

He  threw  his  weight  against  the  shafts  and  stopped  the 
gig- 

"Nor  am  I.  Not  for  myself.  But  do  you  not  see  my 
point  of  view?" 

"I  have  a  pair  of  eyes  in  my  head,"  she  retorted,  "and 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  93 

in  front  of  me  I  see  my  partner,  Monsieur  Paul  Ranee, 
whom  I  met  when  I  was  at  Rennes." 

"Yes,  all  that  sounds  very  pleasant,  but " 

"Mon  ami,"  she  broke  in,  "why  are  you  in  such  a 
hurry  to  explain  things  to  people,  when  no  one  has  asked 
for  explanations  ?" 

She  gave  a  push  to  the  gig. 

"Allons !  You  are  afraid  that  Bibi  will  gossip,  and  that 
people  will  believe  him.  I  am  not  going  to  be  frightened 
by  Bibi,  simply  because  it  amuses  him  to  frighten  people. 
Besides "  ' 

Her  brown  eyes  gave  him  a  flash  of  buoyant  audacity. 

"You  need  not  explain  a  thing  that  will  appear  obvious 
to  decent  people.  And  it  is  always  possible  for  a  man  to 
change  his  mind." 

Brent  was  puzzled. 

"I  don't  understand  you." 

She  gave  another  and  more  vigorous  push  to  the  cart, 
looking  at  him  with  eyes  that  said,  "What  a  simple 
fellow  you  are!"  Brent  turned  about  and  put  his  weight 
on  the  shafts,  and  staring  at  the  pave  in  front  of  him, 
spent  the  whole  of  that  journey  in  trying  to  disentangle 
her  meaning. 

During  the  unloading  of  the  gig  Brent  watched  Manon's 
face  as  though  he  hoped  to  find  it  a  mirror  in  which  he 
could  see  the  reflection  of  his  own  thoughts.  But  Manon's 
face  showed  him  nothing.  She  was  the  cheerfully  deter- 
mined little  Frenchwoman  wholly  absorbed  in  helping  him 
to  unload  those  iron  sheets.  She  refused  to  be  sentimental 
or  to  let  herself  encourage  Brent's  tendency  towards  too 
much  self-consciousness.  Men  are  such  children,  and 
Brent  appeared  to  be  an  unusually  sensitive  child.  He 
would  go  and  get  lost  in  the  woods  unless  she  held  him 
shrewdly  to  the  great  work  that  mattered. 


XV 

AFTER  working  at  the  huts  till  ten  o'clock,  Brent  walked 
back  to  the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire  by  the  light  of  the  moon. 
He  was  tired,  dead  tired,  but  his  weariness  was  full  of  a 
pleasant  sense  of  physical  satisfaction;  he  had  done  the 
best  day's  work  in  his  life,  and  if  his  hands  were  sore  and 
his  back  one  huge  ache,  what  did  it  matter? 

Manon  had  gone  home  earlier  to  light  the  stove.  She 
heard  Brent's  footsteps  on  the  pave,  and  ran  out  to  meet 
him. 

"Partner,  I'm  tired." 

He  laughed  over  it,  for  he  was  a  little  exultant. 

"I  never  thought  that  we  could  do  it,  rip  off  a  hundred 
sheets  and  get  them  carted  and  stacked  here.  I  have 
knocked  half  the  weather  boarding  off  that  hut." 

Manon  enveloped  him  in  a  soft  atmosphere  of  sympathy, 
applause,  gratitude. 

"Go  down  and  sit  by  the  fire.  The  water  is  boiling. 
What  shall  it  be,  tea  or  coffee  ?" 

"Coffee.     Your  coffee?" 

The  tired  yet  happy  note  in  his  voice  touched  her. 
She  had  been  thinking  a  great  deal  about  Paul  while  she 
was  watching  the  stove  grow  red  and  waiting  for  the  sound 
of  his  return.  In  all  her  experience  of  life — and  a  woman 
can  see  an  abundance  of  life  in  a  little  French  cafe — 
Manon  had  never  met  a  personality  quite  like  Paul's. 
This  little  widow  knew  men  through  and  through,  yet 
Brent  had  puzzled  her  until  that  moment  when  he  had  sat 
astride  the  roof  of  the  hut  and  betrayed  the  sensitive  prud- 
ery of  a  seutimentalist.  She  liked  him  none  the  less  for 
that,  though  it  added  to  the  complexity  of  the  adventure. 
Manon  was  not  a  prude,  and  Paul  was  not  a  Frenchman. 
94 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  95 

She  realized  the  significance  of  the  fact,  nor  did  the  pos- 
sible unexpectedness  of  this  man's  romantic  boyishness 
bore  her.  She  was  piqued  by  it.  Most  men  are  so  obvious. 

She  had  a  meal  ready  for  this  tired  man  of  hers,  a 
man  whose  body  had  performed  a  tour-de-force,  and  whose 
happy  weariness  was  ready  to  eat,  drink,  light  its  pipe 
and  relax  before  the  fire.  Manon  was  glad  of  Brent's 
tiredness,  even  as  she  was  glad  of  his  strength.  She  wanted 
him  in  that  mood  of  happy  relaxation.  She  saw  the  white 
stones  of  the  cellar's  vault  bright  with  candle  light  and  the 
glow  from  the  stove.  The  water  bubbled  contentedly  in 
the  saucepan.  The  arm-chair  from  the  ecole  stood  em- 
bracing the  warmth  from  the  fire.  And  Manou  was  sensi- 
tively alert  to  the  impression  that  the  homeliness  of  the 
place  would  make  on  Paul.  She  had  been  busy  here,  ex- 
erting a  woman's  forethought,  not  for  purely  selfish  ends, 
but  because  a  woman's  shrewdness  may  become  involved 
in  the  things  that  she  does  for  a  particular  man. 

"You  have  earned  that  chair." 

He  took  it,  after  protesting  that  it  should  be  hers. 
"She  saw  him  lie  back  and  melt  into  enjoyment  of  this 
atmosphere  of  simple  comfort. 

"I  say — this  is  good." 

His  eyes  wandered — and  then  fell  to  watching  Manon, 
Manon  whose  hands  were  busy  in  his  service.  He  became 
aware  of  the  pleasantness  of  Manon,  and  that  it  was  good 
to  look  at  her,  good  to  feel  her  near.  As  she  leant  forward 
over  the  stove  to  fill  the  coffee-pot  Paul  noticed  the  brown 
depths  of  her  eyes,  the  shadowy  curves  of  her  nostrils,  the 
pretty  line  of  her  mouth,  her  frank  forehead,  and  the  white 
fulness  of  her  throat  and  chin.  He  observed  a  little  brown 
freckle  rather  quaintly  placed  in  the  centre  of  her  left 
lower  eyelid.  Her  hands  were  plump  and  strong,  with 
straight,  well-formed  fingers;  generous,  capable  hands. 
He  was  aware,  too,  of  a  perfume,  a  personal  aroma  that 
was  subtle  and  wholly  French. 

"Voila!" 

She  drew  the  table  close  to  the  stove. 


96  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

"How  is  that?" 

"I  am  being  spoilt,"  said  Brent. 

That  was  exactly  what  she  wanted  him  to  feel.  The 
memory  of  this  evening  was  to  have  a  particular  signifi- 
cance. 

"You  amazed  me  to-day." 

She  was  pouring  out  his  coffee. 

"I  never  saw  a  man  work  with  such  ferocity." 

"I  enjoyed  it" 

"Yes,  but  you  must  not  work  too  hard.  And  I  am 
not  going  to  talk  to  you  until  after  supper." 

"Talking  is  food,"  said  Brent,  "if  one  happens  to  be 
interested." 

Now  Manon's  attitude  towards  Brent  had  developed 
since  she  had  realized  how  easily  he  could  be  affected  by 
the  swaggering  cynicism  of  a  man  like  Louis  Blanc. 
Hitherto  she  had  not  been  conscious  of  any  particular  at- 
titude towards  this  comrade  of  two  days.  The  adventure 
had  opened  with  such  verve  and  simplicity  that  she  had 
not  bothered  her  head  about  the  social  complexities,  but 
the  coming  of  Bibi  and  Paul's  instant  reaction  to  the  chal- 
lenge in  the  big  Frenchman's  sensual  eyes  had  compelled 
her  to  look  at  Brent  more  closely.  She  guessed  that  he  had 
a  thin  skin,  and  that  he  was  the  sort  of  good  fellow  who 
fell  into  a  panic  if  anyone  accused  him  of  behaving  like 
a  blackguard.  Like  many  sensitive  men  he  was  extraordi- 
narily diffident.  An  audacious  beast  like  Bibi  would 
squeeze  out  all  his  self-confidence. 

"What  a  comfort  it  is  to  have  you  here." 

Brent  looked  surprised,  pleasantly  disconcerted. 

"In  what  way  ?" 

"Because  you  are  rather  unusual.  Most  men — Oh! — 
well — you  know  what  I  mean." 

It  was  the  beginning  of  her  conscious  effort  to  humour 
her  man.  Paul  was  a  sentimentalist,  but  Manon  had  a 
philosophy.  She  knew  that  life  is  always  a  bit  of  a 
scramble  and  that  in  Beaucourt  life  was  going  to  be  rather 
primitive  and  savage.  Paul's  skin  was  too  thin.  She 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  97 

had  a  feeling  that  she  would  have  to  guard  his  sensitive- 
ness— prevent  his  impressionable  good  nature  from  being 
at  the  mercy  of  hard  people.  Brent  lacked  hardness.  She 
had  an  idea  that  this  lack  of  hardness  had  been  the  cause 
of  his  failure. 

"But  you  can't  make  a  soft  man  hard,"  she  said  to 
herself;  "it  must  be  done  some  other  way." 

She  felt  that  Brent  had  that  queer  passion  for  ethical 
self-expression  that  plain  people  call  "self-sacrifice." 
She  sensed  it  vaguely  at  first,  and  she  could  not  have 
translated  the  impression  into  words.  It  was  a  thread,  an 
intuition,  and  she  followed  it. 

"This  fine  weather  cannot  last,"  she  said  with  apparent 
vagueness. 

She  filled  his  cup  a  second  time. 

"And  to-morrow  ?     What  will  you  do  to-morrow  ?" 

He  knew  at  once  what  he  meant  to  do,  and  she  respected 
the  quiet  and  orderly  way  in  which  he  had  mapped  out 
the  work. 

"I  shall  bring  the  timber  across.  The  rafters  of  that 
big  hut  will  be  the  right  size  for  us  over  here.  Nothing  like 
having  all  your  material  on  the  spot,  and  under  your  eyes, 
— especially  as  there  seems  some  chance  of  competi- 
tion." 

He  frowned  when  he  thought  of  Bibi,  and  Manon  was 
prompted  by  that  frown.  She  thought  of  altering  her 
plans,  and  she  was  curious  to  see  what  effect  such  an  altera- 
tion would  have  upon  Brent,  but  she  wanted  her  change 
of  purpose  to  develop  naturally  and  not  to  appear  as  a 
sudden  decision  forced  on  her  from  without. 

"More  coffee,  mon  ami  ?" 

"Please.    It's  so  jolly  good." 

"No  more  to  eat?" 

"Not  another  mouthful." 

She  looked  at  the  bully  beef ,  the  biscuits,  the  carton 
of  jam — and  the  unappetizing  dryness  of  this  fodder  gave 
her  her  first  suggestion.  She  made  a  little  grimace,  and 
waved  a  hand  over  the  table. 


98  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

"You  poor  man.  Now,  if  only  we  had  a  savoury 
omelette  and  some  spinach !  I  must  change  all  this.  That 
is  obvious." 

She  appeared  to  reflect. 

"Yes,  you  must  have  fresh  food, — eggs  and  butter 
and  vegetables.  If  I  went  three  times  a  week  to  Ste. 
Claire " 

Brent  had  brought  out  his  pipe,  and  then  slipped  it 
back  again  into  his  pocket.  The  gesture  was  full  of  sig- 
nificance. 

"Smoke." 

"Not  here." 

"But  I  like  the  smell  of  it." 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  am  at  the  end  of  my  tobacco." 

"Quel  dommage !  But  this  is  a  tragedy.  It  is  obvious 
that  I  must  go  to  Amiens ;  I  may  be  able  to  buy  English 
tobacco  there." 

He  corrected  her. 

"What  a  conscience  you  have!  But,  mon  ami,  could 
you  spare  me  to-morrow?  Could  you  carry  all  that 
Wood?" 

"Easily." 

"And  if  I  stayed  away  three  days  ?" 

She  saw  that  he  was  not  in  the  least  dashed  by  the 
Suggestion.  In  fact  he  approved  of  it. 

"I  shall  want  that  saw." 

"Yes — and  blankets.  It  must  be  so  horribly  cold  up 
there,  and  you  were  quite  snug  before  I  came.  Oh,  mon 
ami,  I  have  an  idea." 

He  looked  up  at  her  questioningly. 

"Well ?" 

"It  will  take  many  days  to  put  a  roof  on  the  house, 
will  it  not?" 

"A  fortnight — perhaps  more." 

"And  then  there  are  the  doors  and  windows." 

"Yes." 

"The  weather  will  change.    Rain  and  wind — mon  Dieu  I 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  99 

And  you,  under  those  pieces  of  tin !  Be  quite  honest  with 
me,  Paul;  would  it  not  be  more  sensible  for  me  to  stay 
at  Ste.  Claire  and  leave  you  the  cellar — until  the  roof 
is  on  ?" 

She  watched  Brent's  face,  and  discovered  nothing  but 
a  faint  shadow  of  surprise,  a  surprise  that  was  momentary 
and  transient.  He  leaned  forward  and  stirred  up  the  wood 
in  the  stove  with  an  old  iron  bar  that  they  used  for  the 
purpose.  The  glow  from  the  wood  shone  on  a  calm  face, 
and  Manon  saw  that  it  had  cost  him  no  effort  to  adjust  life 
to  the  new  atmosphere. 

"A  sound  idea,"  he  said,  feeding  more  wood  into  the 
stove. 

Perceiving  no  resistance,  Manon  let  the  new  plan  de- 
velop itself. 

"It  is  not  that  I  am  a  coward,  mon  ami,  or  afraid  of  a 
rough  life." 

"You  are  no  coward,"  he  said  with  quiet  conviction. 

She  showed  a  sudden  animation  that  flowed  with  the 
full  flood  of  the  new  idea. 

"I  can  hire  a  horse  and  cart  in  Ste.  Claire,  and  I  must 
see  what  can  be  bought  at  Amiens.  I  could  drive  over  here 
twice  a  week,  and  if  I  started  very  early  in  the  morning  I 
should  be  able  to  spend  most  of  the  day  here,  cook  for 
you,  and  help  you  when  you  needed  a  second  pair  of 
hands.  And  then,  there  is  the  garden." 

"The  garden's  important." 

"Yes,  our  living  this  summer.  I  could  work  in  the 
garden  and  sow  seeds,  and  I  could  use  the  horse  and  cart 
to  collect  things  for  you.  I  must  think  of  my  good  part- 
ner's comfort." 

Brent  stared  at  the  fire. 

"Don't  worry  about  me,"  he  said ;  "I  am  not  the  one  to 
be  considered.  I  am  thinking  of  you." 

They  had  been  skimming  the  surface,  but  those  words  of 
Brent's  went  down  beneath  the  conventional  crust. 

"Mon  ami,  you  are  very  unselfish." 


100  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

"It's  not  that.  A  man  has  to  think  of  things — other 
things  than  bricks  and  timber ;  and  when  there  is  a  woman 
about,  a  man  has  to  think  of  her." 

Manon  was  silent  for  a  while,  and  in  her  heart  of  hearts 
ghe  knew  that  Paul  was  right.  She  had  used  her  intuition 
and  her  shrewdness  to  bring  the  adventure  into  sympathy 
with  this  man's  simple  sense  of  honour,  and  now  that 
the  thing  was  done  she  felt  that  Paul  was  happier. 

"What  a  good  man  you  are!" 

He  smiled  at  her  and  said  nothing. 

"You  think  of  others  before  yourself.  And  how  ex- 
citing it  will  be  when  I  drive  over  and  see  what  you 
have  done;  each  time  there  will  be  something  fresh,  a 
new  piece  of  roof,  a  door,  a  window." 

"It  will  be  just  as  exciting  to  me — the  finest  game  I 
ever  played  in  my  life." 

She  frowned  a  little  over  that  word. 

"Game — game!  You  English  are  always  thinking  of 
games." 

"The  word  does  not  fit ;  I  should  not  have  used  it.  It 
is  more  than  a  game." 

Manon  looked  at  her  knees,  possessed  by  a  feeling  of 
gentleness  and  humility.  She  knew  now  that  she  had  been 
right  about  Brent,  utterly  right  in  her  reading  of  hii 
simple  and  sensitive  character.  He  was  no  ordinary  man, 
nor  was  his  inspiration  the  inspiration  of  the  ordinary 
man.  Brent  gave.  Most  men  take. 

"It  is  very  strange,"  she  said,  "that  you  should  be  so 
good  to  me.  I  think — somehow — that  doing  good  thingi 
is  as  pleasant  to  you  as  the  tobacco  you  smoke  in  your  pipe. 
la  it  not  so,  monsieur?" 

He  nodded. 

"Perhaps  there's  reason  in  it." 

"I  am  very  lucky." 

And  then  she  added, 

"How  good  to  be  able  to  trust  you — with  everything! 
It  is  like  feeling  that  God  is  near." 


XVI 

BREHT  was  up  with  the  dawn.  He  heard  a  bird  singing 
somewhere  as  he  went  down  to  the  well  to  fill  the  bucket, 
and  he  stood  in  the  street  and  looked  at  the  sky  with  th« 
eyes  of  a  child.  In  the  east  and  reaching  to  the  zenith 
great  ridges  of  tawny  white  cloud  broke  the  intense  blue 
of  the  sky.  A  mysterious  golden  light  enveloped  every- 
thing, the  broken  walls,  the  spire  of  the  church,  the  grey- 
green  hills,  the  murk  of  the  woods,  the  tangled,  unpruned 
orchards.  Even  the  cobble-stones  had  a  bloom  of  gold 
npon  them.  The  brown  blackness  of  Manon's  house  loomed 
up  against  the  dawn. 

Brent's  face  was  a  thing  of  delight.  His  beard  had  a 
more  tawny  richness,  his  eyes  a  deeper  blue. 

"By  God— life's  good!" 

He  felt  good,  good  to  the  core.  When  he  had  filled 
the  bucket  and  drawn  it  up,  the  splashing  water  itself 
seemed  to  laugh  in  the  early  sunlight.  Brent  stood  in  the 
street  and  washed,  stripped  to  the  waist,  dipping  his 
head  into  the  cold  water  and  letting  it  run  over  his  chest 
and  shoulders.  A  little  spiral  of  blue  smoke  had  begun  to 
climb  like  some  magic  plant  up  the  wall  of  Manon's  house, 
and  Brent  could  hear  the  crackling  of  wood  in  the  stove. 
Manon  was  busy  before  her  ten-mile  walk  to  Ste.  Claire. 

An  hour  later  she  was  standing  at  the  top  of  the  flight 
of  steps  leading  to  the  street,  her  bag  in  her  hand,  her  face 
upturned  to  Brent's.  It  was  a  happy  face  with  gentle 
eyes,  the  flicker  of  a  smile  playing  about  the  mouth. 

.      »  *       •« 

Au  revoir. 

He  held  her  hand  for  a  moment 
"I  will  look  after  everything." 
101 


102  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

"And  take  care  of  yourself,  Paul.  I  will  not  forget 
the  tobacco." 

She  turned  and  went  down  the  steps,  turned  again  at 
the  corner  by  the  stone  house,  and  looked  back  at  him 
with  a  kind  of  smiling  solemnity.  The  morning;  sunlight 
was  on  her  face,  and  her  plain  black  dress  showed  up 
against  the  white  stonework. 

"Au  revoir." 

Brent  raised  a  hand  like  a  man  uttering  a  benediction. 

He  remained  standing  there  after  she  had  gone,  filling 
his  pipe  with  the  last  dust  that  was  left  in  his  pouch,  and 
smiling  without  realizing  the  smile  in  his  eyes.  For  Brent 
was  happy,  extraordinarily  happy,  and  life  seemed  very- 
good  to  him  that  morning.  He  was  conscious  of  strong 
and  simple  purpose,  and  of  the  man's  job  ready  to  his 
hands.  He  was  conscious,  too,  of  being  trusted;  and 
Manon's  faith  in  him  was  the  most  precious  thing  that  his 
hands  had  touched  for  many  years.  He  felt  that  he  had 
a  new  heart  in  a  new  body — that  he  had  begun  to  love 
these  ruins  because  of  their  human  significance.  There 
was  hope  in  the  air,  and  the  spring  was  coming. 

"Off  with  your  coat,  man,"  said  Life;  "swing  your 
hammer  and  drive  your  saw.  Sweat — sweat  and  feel  good. 
It  is  the  simple  things  that  matter." 

Brent  had  the  ultimate  philosophy  of  life  ripening  in  his 
heart.  He  had  worked  back  to  the  wholesome  state  of 
using  his  hands,  nor  were  they  the  hands  of  a  machine 
minder  or  of  a  clerk  fribbling  with  a  typewriter  or  a  pen. 
Yesterday  he  had  worked  with  a  ferocious  forcefulness ; 
to-day  his  body  moved  like  silk,  easily  and  with  a  smooth 
balance;  his  hammer  went  true  to  the  mark;  he  had  no 
sense  of  hurry  or  fatigue.  He  was  above  his  work,  its 
master,  and  in  a  mood  that  could  open  its  eyes  to  the  world 
and  catch  glimpses  of  the  strange  beauty  that  is  every- 
where. 

In  his  resting  moments,  or  when  he  was  ready  to  start 
off  with  a  load,  he  would  stand  for  a  little  while  and  stare 
at  the  graining  of  a  piece  of  timber,  the  dark  shadows 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  103 

that  seemed  to  hang  in  the  bare  woods,  the  sunlight  on  the 
hill,  or  the  way  some  broken  bit  of  wall  cut  a  zig-zag  out 
of  the  blue  of  the  sky.  His  contentment  was  so  complete 
and  so  pleasant  that  he  could  not  help  questioning  it, 
turning  it  over  and  over  like  a  man  examining  something 
that  he  has  found. 

"I  wonder  if  I  should  get  bored  here — fed  up?" 

He  laughed. 

Boredom  seemed  so  far  from  the  mood  of  the  moment ; 
yet  he  chalked  "boredom"  on  the  black-board  of  his  mind, 
and  tabulated  all  the  facts  he  could  accumulate  on  the 
subject.  He  could  not  remember  feeling  bored  as  a  boy, 
except  in  church  and  at  school,  when  the  buoyant  young- 
ster in  him  had  been  repressed.  His  marriage  and  too 
much  "business"  had  brought  other  and  more  subtle  forms 
of  self-repression.  He  had  been  very  badly  bored  during 
the  thirties.  And  he  had  been  short  of  exercise,  whole- 
some sweat  of  body  and  of  soul. 

"Yes,  but  this  is  only  an  adventure,"  said  the  voice 
in  him. 

But  was  it  only  an  adventure  ? 

He  had  pushed  the  gig  along  the  Rue  de  Rosieres,  and 
had  begun  to  unload  the  timber,  stacking  it  in  the  back 
room  on  the  right  of  the  passage.  Each  time  he  carried 
in  a  length  of  timber  that  reached  from  the  floor  to  some 
twelve  feet  up  the  wall,  he  found  himself  thinking,  "An- 
other rafter  for  Manon." 

"Mon  ami,"  he  thought,  using  those  words  of  hers, 
"why  worry  ?  We  fools  are  always  looking  six  months 
ahead  and  missing  the  glass  of  wine  on  the  table." 

He  decided  that  he  would  not  be  a  creator  of  problems, 
but  march  straight  ahead  towards  the  broad  sweep  of 
this  new  horizon. 

Brent  spent  the  rest  of  the  day  in  dismantling  the  frame- 
work of  the  largest  of  the  huts,  and  in  carting  the  timber  to 
the  cafe.  The  work  had  gone  so  well  that  he  now  had 
nearly  all  the  material  he  needed  for  the  rough  work  on 
the  house,  and  the  material  included  a  couple  of  deal  doors 


104  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

and  four  window-frames.  One  of  the  huts  in  the  field  on 
the  road  to  Rosieres  had  a  wooden  floor,  and  Brent  made 
up  his  mind  to  salve  that  floor,  for  the  boards  would 
be  invaluable  when  he  came  to  dealing  with  three  upper 
rooms.  Just  before  dusk  fell  he  trundled  the  barrow  over 
to  the  factory  and  brought  back  a  load  of  lime,  making 
a  second  journey  for  some  sand.  The  first  job  on  the  mor- 
row would  be  the  re-bricking  of  the  holes  in  the  walls,  and 
after  supper,  when  the  moon  rose,  he  went  out  again  with 
the  barrow  and  collected  bricks. 

Brent  had  not  entered  the  cellar  since  Manon  had  left 
it,  and  at  the  end  of  that  long  day  when  he  had  taken  his 
food  cold,  and  between  heroic  spells  of  work,  he  went  down 
the  flight  of  steps  into  the  darkness  of  the  place.  He  stood 
holding  the  ground  sheet  aside,  aware  of  a  something  that 
was  Manon,  a  faint  perfume — a  perfume  that  had  clung 
about  her  clothes.  It  made  Brent  think  of  a  bed  of  gilli- 
flowers  on  an  evening  in  May. 

He  smiled,  lit  the  candle,  and  glanced  round  the  cellar. 
Manon  had  tidied  everything  before  leaving.  The  cups 
and  plates  were  white  and  clean  on  the  shelves,  she  had 
made  the  bed,  and  left  the  stove  filled  with  wood  ready  for 
a  match.  Old  Mere  Vitry's  picture  of  the  Sacred  Heart 
stood  on  the  table,  leaning  against  the  wall.  Brent  found 
himself  looking  at  it. 

"There's  something  in  that — after  all,"  he  thought; 
"and  yet  she  says  that  she  is  not  a  Catholic !" 

He  lit  the  stove  and  watched  the  yellow  flames  climb 
up  through  the  wood,  and  his  thoughts  were  with  Manon 
and  her  religion.  These  old  beliefs,  superstitions,  as  he 
had  learnt  to  call  them,  these  woodland  shadows  and  red 
blaze  of  sunset  glass,  those  saints,  and  martyrs,  miracles, 
the  wine  that  was  blood,  the  tears,  the  terrors,  the  quaint 
paganism  that  lingered  like  sunlight  on  the  dark  edge  of 
the  eternal  mystery !  He  had  a  feeling  that  the  very  soil 
of  Beaucourt  was  saturated  with  this  most  human  essence. 
It  was  like  the  sap  in  the  roots  of  the  plants  and  trees. 
The  moderns  were  educated;  they  were — in  the  mass — • 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE  105 

eery  material  people.  Even  these  French  peasants  were 
Children  of  the  age  of  reason,  and  yet  the  sap  was  there 
under  their  feet,  the  mystic  heritage  of  centuries.  That 
was  how  Paul  felt  it  in  the  person  of  Manon  Latour.  The 
scientific  farmer  thinks  of  his  artificial  manure  and  is  apt 
to  forget  the  spring.  The  miracle  has  got  lost  inside  the 
machine.  Yet  the  orchards  put  on  their  white  garlands 
like  girls  who  feel  the  great  mystery  within  them. 

"One  always  comes  back  to  it,"  said  Brent 

And  Manon  had  knelt  in  the  ruined  church  of  Beau- 
court  and  then  told  him  with  a  child's  frankness  that  her 
religion  was  her  own.  Of  course  it  was  hers.  She  was 
as  full  of  religion  as  the  soil  was  full  of  spring.  She  had 
not  been  smothered  in  a  town.  She  did  not  sell  herself; 
there  was  more  than  mere  sense  under  her  petticoat.  She 
had  a  soul. 

"Queer,  isn't  it?"  thought  Brent.  "A  modern  man 
would  think  you  were  a  bit  cracked  if  you  started  talking 
about  a  soul.  A  few  hundred  years  ago  he  would  have 
felt  insulted  if  you  had  taken  it  for  granted  that  he 
hadn't  one.  We're  too  damned  clever;  that's  what's  the 
matter  with  us." 

Yet  he  went  to  bed  a  mixture  of  mystic  and  materialist. 
One  of  the  blankets  had  the  faint  perfume  of  Manon's 
clothes. 

"Smells  like  the  spring,"  he  said  to  himself. 

And  then  he  fell  to  gloating  over  that  mass  of  wood 
tud  iron  he  had  stacked  in  the  rooms  above. 

"Well,  what  about  it?"  was  the  retort  of  the  mystic- 
materialist.  "Even  a  Bradbury  has  a  potential  souL 
Depends  on  what  you  do  with  it,  of  course." 

Manon,  meanwhile,  was  sitting  in  Madame  Castener's 
cottage  at  Ste.  Claire.  She  had  reached  the  hill  above 
Ste.  Claire  about  noon,  and  had  looked  down  on  the  village 
flashing  its  white  walls  behind  the  sun-splashed  tops  of  the 
poplars.  The  completeness  and  the  unravaged  tranquillity 
of  Ste.  Claire  had  shocked  her  a  little  after  the  ruins  of 
Beaucourt.  What  luck  there  had  been  in  the  war !  Yes, 


106  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

but  Beaucourt  and  its  wrecked  houses  had  produced  Paul 
Brent,  and  to  Manon — the  woman — Paul  Brent  had  begun 
to  matter. 

Veuve  Castener's  Flemish  face  hung  out  a  look  of  mas- 
sive surprise  when  Manon  walked  into  the  cottage. 

"What!    You  back?" 

"Yes,  I  am  here,"  said  Manon  to  this  obvious  lady; 
"have  I  changed?" 

Madame  Castener  wiped  her  mouth  with  a  corner  of 
her  apron. 

She  was  a  heavy  woman — all  bulges  and  protuberances 
— a  big  cow,  but  'kind.  A  widow,  she  lived  alone.  Her 
married  son,  Etienne,  had  the  cottage  next  door. 

"There  is  something  to  eat." 

Manon  took  off  her  cloak  and  hat. 

"Who  told  you  that  I  was  staying  at  Beaucourt  ?" 
she  asked. 

Veuve  Castener  never  hurried  herself.  She  sat  down 
again  at  the  round  table,  put  a  bit  of  bread  in  her  mouth, 
munched  it,  and  then  replied: 

"A  man,  ma  cherie." 

Manon  laughed,  and  fetched  herself  a  plate  and  knife 
and  fork  from  the  dresser. 

"And  they  say  men  do  not  gossip !" 

"It  was  that  fellow  who  used  to  keep  the  hotel  at 
Beaucourt." 

"Oh,  Bibi!"  said  Manon,  with  casual  scorn.  "I  sup- 
pose he  wanted  to  find  out  how  long  I  was  staying  at 
Beaucourt.  That  fellow  ought  to  have  been  killed  in  the 
war." 

She  sat  down  and  helped  herself  to  the  very  plain  food 
that  was  on  the  table. 

"So  Bibi  is  starting  a  scandal,  is  he?    How  droll!" 

She  looked  at  her  good  friend,  who  continued  to  munch 
like  a  cow  chewing  the  cud.  There  were  no  treacheries 
and  no  surprises  in  Veuve  Castener;  she  was  always  the 
same,  rolling  along  like  a  big  wagon  that  would  never  land 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  107 

you  in  the  ditch.  Her  imperturbable  stupidity  was  an 
asset,  weight  on  a  critical  occasion,  ballast  during  a  storm. 
Nothing  ever  threw  her  into  a  state  of  excitement.  It 
was  possible  that  when  the  Last  Trump  sounded  she  might 
keep  all  Heaven  waiting  while  she  mended  a  hole  in  her 
stocking. 

Veuve  Castener  had  helped  at  the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire 
before  Manon's  marriage.  Her  very  slowness  made  her 
loyal,  for  when  she  had  grown  fond  of  a  person  there  was 
no  time  for  her  to  grow  tired.  Friendship,  like  her  petti- 
coats, seemed  to  last  with  Veuve  Castener  for  ever. 

Manon  was  in  a  dilemma.  Had  she  felt  free  to  do  so, 
she  would  have  told  her  friend  everything,  for  Marie 
Castener  was  to  be  trusted ;  but  Manon  held  herself  bound 
to  keep  Paul's  secret.  He  was  at  her  mercy,  and  Manon 
had  a  sense  of  honour. 

"I  must  tell  you  about  Paul,"  she  said:  "you  did  not 
know  that  I  had  found  a  partner?" 

"I  know  nothing  till  I  am  told,  my  dear." 

"Not  even  when  Bibi ?" 

Marie  gave  a  fat  shrug. 

"Oh — a  man  like  that !  A  stallion  who  comes  and  neighs 
on  your  doorstep.  I'm  deaf  on  those  occasions." 

"What  a  good  soul  you  are.  Well,  I  found  Paul  Ranee 
at  Beaucourt;  he  had  arrived  there  before  me,  and  he 
had  been  using  his  head  and  his  eyes.  That  leads  to  another 
confession,  does  it  not,  Marie  ?  Paul  had  lived  in  England 
for  seven  years  before  the  war.  He  joined  the  English 
army.  He  used  to  come  to  my  cafe, — a  quiet  fellow  who 
looked  at  you  and  said  very  little,  but  I  did  not  find  out 
what  Paul  was  till  the  day  of  the  retreat." 

She  described  the  burying  of  her  treasure,  and  the  coin- 
cidence of  Brent's  appearing  on  the  scene. 

"Yes,  he  helped  me  that  day,  and  the  money  is  still 
hidden  there.  Paul  stayed  behind  after  I  had  gone;  he 
had  the  body  of  a  friend  to  bury,  an  Englishman,  and  he 
was  taken  prisoner  because  he  remained  behind  to  bury 


108  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

his  friend.  That  is  the  sort  of  man  Paul  Ranee  is.  He 
came  to  see  me  when  he  was  released  from  Germany,  and 
we  struck  up  a  partnership.  He  is  over  there — in  Beau- 
court — putting  a  roof  on  my  house." 

Veuve  Castener  absorbed  all  this  information  with  bland 
stolidity.  She  had  always  had  such  faith  in  Manon's 
shrewdness  that  it  never  occurred  to  her  to  explore  the 
affair  on  her  own  account.  Her  inertia  accepted  things. 
She  sat  in  a  chair  and  was  content  with  what  was  given 
her.  A  most  comfortable  woman. 

"So  Beaucourt  is  not  so  bad  as  you  had  feared  ?" 

"It  made  my  heart  weep,"  said  Manon ;  "but  it  seema 
that  I  am  one  of  the  lucky  ones.  The  walls  are  there, 
and  Paul  is  very  confident  that  he  can  make  the  house  fi* 
to  live  in." 

Marie  folded  her  hands  over  her  apron.  She  had  pleas- 
ant and  pastoral  visions  of  a  beneficent  future  for  Manon. 
Naturally  these  two  had  arranged  the  matter;  when  the 
house  was  ready  they  would  marry;  it  was  an  excellent 
thing  for  Manon.  The  romance  was  so  obvious  to  Marie 
Castener  that  she  swallowed  and  digested  it,  and  thought 
no  more  of  the  matter.  A  very  comfortable  woman. 

"You  have  a  man  left  to  work  for  you.  You  ar« 
lucky." 

"He  is  such  a  good  fellow,"  said  Manon. 

"And  Monsieur  Blanc  was  annoyed.  He  will  visit 
you  here ;  I  could  not  get  rid  of  the  fellow." 

Manon  frowned. 

"Most  men  are  such  fools.  I  wish  you  would  put 
Monsieur  Bibi  in  your  cauldron  and  boil  the  conceit  out 
of  him.  But,  Marie,  I  want  Etienne  to  drive  me  into 
Amiens,  and  perhaps  you  will  come  with  me.  Will  it  be 
possible  to-morrow  ?  I  will  pay  Etienne  for  the  horse  and 
his  time.  I  have  things  to  buy  in  Amiens." 

Veuve  Castener  saw  no  impossibility  in  driving  to 
Amiens.  It  was  an  adventure,  and  she  would  not  hare 
to  use  her  legs. 

"I  will  arrange  it  with  Etienne." 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  109 

Manon  spent  the  evening  in  drawing  out  a  list  of  all 
that  she  and  Brent  needed. 

At  the  end  of  the  list  she  jotted  down  a  rather  cryptic 
note. 

"Try  and  get  hold  of  a  pistol  for  Paul" 


xvn 

THE  expedition  to  Amiens  started  at  an  early  hour.  A 
big  brown  horse  pulled  the  big  brown  cart,  with  Manon 
wedged  in  between  Veuve  Castener  and  her  son.  Marie, 
her  round  red  face  shining  from  the  wrappings  of  a  black 
shawl,  overflowed  with  a  great  bunching  of  skirts  over  one 
mud-guard,  her  right  arm  round  Manon's  waist.  Etienne, 
.equally  big  and  heavy,  overflowed  on  the  other  side. 
Manon  looked  like  a  child  between  them — the  centre  of 
intelligence  between  two  bulging  bodies.  Her  eyes  were 
bright,  for  Manon  was  happy. 

And  Veuve  Castener  chattered.  It  was  her  way.  A 
silent  woman  when  things  were  quiet,  she  became  conver- 
sational in  a  cart,  or  when  she  was  turning  the  handle  of 
the  "cream  separator,"  or  pounding  dirty  clothes  in  a  tub. 
Adventitious  noises  seemed  to  stir  her  to  animation,  and 
the  more  noise  there  was,  the  more  she  talked. 

"Yes,  that  fellow  Louis  Blanc  is  staying  at  Baudry's 
farm,  though  I  would  not  have  a  man  like  that  inside  my 
house.  Always  after  the  women,  though  what  they  can 
see  in  the  man,  heaven  knows.  Big,  of  course,  and  a 
swaggerer,  but  with  a  face  like  a  goat." 

"There  are  two  sorts  of  women,"  said  Manon,  "those 
who  are  attracted  by  a  blackguard  and  those  who  are  not. 
Oh,  to  be  sure,  a  man  like  that  is  very  successful." 

"I  prefer  a  quiet  man — a  man  who  can  always  be  found* 
Besides,  what  do  women  expect  ?"  , 

"Say — what  do  they  want  ?  A  man  like  Bibi  has  what 
most  of  them  want.  He  just  gets  hold  of  them  in  the 
barn — or  anywhere,  and  the  rest  happens.  But  we  are 
shocking  Etienne." 

Monsieur  Castener  grinned.  He  was  laconic,  slow,  not 
110 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  111 

interested  in  anything  but  his  little  farm,  and  he  had  a 
wife  whom  no  other  man  ever  bothered  to  look  at. 

"That  fellow  Bibi  talks  big.    He  has  all  the  news." 

"Yes;  what  was  that  you  heard  him  say  the  other 
night  in  Josephine's  cafe  ?" 

"He  said  such  a  lot,"  growled  Etienne. 

"But  about  Beaucourt?" 

"Beaucourt  ?  He  talked  as  though  Beaucourt  belonged 
to  him.  Said  there  was  a  fortune  in  Beaucourt.  France 
is  ruined,  you  know — but  there's  salvation  in  the  English, 
and  Americans.  Sentimental  people.  Running  about  to 
see  the  battlefields  and  graves." 

Manon  lifted  her  chin.  She  was  quick,  and  through  the 
clumsy  disorder  of  Castener's  words  she  had  a  glimpse  of 
the  ambitions  of  Bibi.  But  why  did  he  boast  about  them  ? 
For  Bibi  was  no  fool. 

"He  means  to  make  money,"  she  said;  "but  that  hotel 
of  his  is  a  rubbish  heap." 

"They  say  he  has  plenty  of  cash.  Talks  about  hiring 
men;  and  the  timber  he  has  been  buying  and  the  army 
stores.  It  seems,  too,  that  they  are  going  to  repair  the 
factory  at  Beaucourt,  and  put  in  new  machinery." 

"I  see,"  said  Manon,  glimpsing  more  and  more  of  Louis 
Blanc's  possible  plans.  She  understood,  too,  why  Bibi 
would  not  be  pleased  at  the  idea  of  rivalry  in  Beaucourt; 
he  had  never  been  gentle  with  people  who  got  in  his 
way. 

But  the  day  and  its  temper  were  so  buoyant  that  Manon 
put  Louis  Blanc  and  his  plans  aside,  and  gave  herself  up 
to  pure  enjoyment.  The  road  ran  through  the  pleasant 
country  south  of  Amiens,  a  country  of  wooded  hills  ajid 
deep  valleys,  all  green  and  brown  and  purple  under  the 
blue  sky.  The  tops  of  the  poplars  flashed  in  the  sunlight, 
in  the  ditches,  and  along  the  banks  crept  the  first  shimmer 
of  the  year's  greenness.  Now  and  again  a  great  white 
cloud  came  sailing  over  the  hills,  or,  passing  between  the 
sun  and  the  earth,  threw  a  mass  of  shadow  upon  some 
brown  field  or  wood. 


112  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

Etienne  knew  a  little  auberge  in  the  Rue  Belu  by  tih« 
river  where  he  put  up  his  horse  and  cart,  and  Manon  and 
Veuve  Castener  went  off  together.  Both  of  them  carried 
string-bags,  and  a  Frenchwoman's  string-bag  has  an  im- 
mense capacity. 

"We  cannot  carry  everything,"  said  Manon.  "Aftev 
dinner  I  shall  have  to  ask  Etienne  to  drive  round  with  tho 
cart" 

Manon  bought  the  smaller  things  first — coffee,  vege» 
table  seeds,  haricots,  sugar,  nails,  a  few  oranges,  matches, 
candles.  In  an  hour  she  had  tired  Veuve  Castener's  legs, 
and  fat  Marie  trudged  back  to  the  inn.  Nor  was  Manon 
sorry  to  be  left  alone.  Her  shopping  had  little  moments  of 
intimacy  that  she  did  not  wish  to  share  with  another 
woman;  and  she  had  Paul  in  her  thoughts,  and  details 
upon  that  list  of  hers  that  had  arrived  there  as  the  result 
of  her  own  observing  eyes.  Moreover,  the  excitement  of 
the  adventure  had  invaded  Amiens,  and  Manon  found 
Amiens  sympathetic  and  ready  to  respond  to  a  little 
woman  who  was  going  back  to  the  ruins.  Certainly  the 
prices  were  extortionate,  for  shopkeepers  are  the  same  all 
the  world  over,  but  Manon  fought;  that  short  little  nose 
of  hers  and  her  firm  chin  belonged  to  a  fighter,  and  the 
French  love  argument.  She  stood  squarely  to  the  counter, 
smiling,  hitting  out  with  perfect  good  humour,  a  sturdj 
little  woman  quite  capable  of  looking  after  her  own  affairs. 

She  bought  blankets,  four  of  them,  half  a  dozen  sheets, 
and  a  couple  of  pillows.  There  was  a  battle  over  the 
blankets;  they  were  poor  things,  and  Manon  said  so. 

"It  would  seem,  monsieur,  that  you  will  insist  on  the 
refugees  sleeping  in  their  petticoats.  Where  is  all  the 
money  to  come  from  ?" 

She  contrived  to  get  thirty  francs  knocked  off  the  price 
of  the  blankets. 

Then  she  went  in  search  of  bargains,  and  found  a  shop 
that  was  kept  by  a  little  widow.  The  widow  had  children 
to  feed,  and  was  ready  to  fight  for  them  with  her  finger- 
nails. The  two  women  talked — and  Manon  did  not  try 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE          113 

to  fight  the  widow.  They  spent  half  an  hour  chatting  to 
each  other,  exchanging  confidences,  and  refusing  to  use 
their  claws. 

"It  is  very  hard  for  all  of  us,"  said  Manon,  "and  you 
have  five  children.  Mon  Dieu! — I  have  none,  but  my 
house  is  in  ruins." 

The  woman  let  Manon  have  some  red  cotton  for  two 
duvets  and  several  lengths  of  cretonne  for  curtains  at  a 
price  that  was  honest. 

"We  women  should  not  devour  each  other." 

The  widow  kept  a  cosmopolitan  sort  of  shop.  Manon 
saw  men's  shirts  hanging  up,  and  a  pile  of  blue  linen 
trousers  on  one  of  the  shelves.  She  knew  that  Paul  had 
one  solitary  suit  of  clothes — clothes  that  would  soon  be 
ruined  by  the  rough  work  on  the  house.  She  bought  him 
two  good  shirts,  two  pairs  of  blue  linen  trousers,  a  pair  of 
heavy  corduroys,  and  a  black  alpaca  coat.  Manon  smiled 
to  herself  as  she  fingered  the  things  and  chatted  to  the 
widow.  There  was  a  suggestive  homeliness  about  buying 
these  clothes  for  Paul,  and  she  found  the  future  strangely 
full  of  him.  He  seemed  to  have  taken  his  place  in  Beau- 
court,  and  she  saw  him  moving  about  in  these  blue  trousers, 
sleeves  rolled  up,  head  bare,  hammering,  sawing,  fixing 
doors  and  windows,  scrambling  about  the  roof,  indefati- 
gable yet  rather  silent.  She  was  growing  quite  familiar 
with  the  set  and  intense  look  in  his  blue  eyes  when  he 
was  at  work.  He  had  good  shoulders  and  strong  arms, 
and  a  clean,  fresh  skin.  Yes,  she  liked  Paul,  the  man. 
And  it  would  be  so  easy  to  hurt  him.  This  good  fellow 
needed  a  protectress. 

Manon  wandered  in  a  happy  mood  through  Amiens. 
She  was  very  alive,  and  the  life  of  Amiens  pleased  her. 
She  idled  into  the  cathedral  and  rested  there  awhile, 
breathing  in  the  soft  grey  tranquil  atmosphere  of  the  place, 
a  young  woman  who  knew  nothing  about  Gothic  architec- 
ture and  was  not  worried  by  that  horrible  notion  that 
it  was  her  duty  to  appreciate  the  beauty  of  the  building. 
She  left  a  franc  in  the  alms  box  and  went  out  in  search  of  a 


114  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

tobacco  shop.  Manon  had  a  little  breeze  with  the  woman 
who  kept  it — for  it  is  quite  unnecessary  to  let  oneself  be 
cheated  even  if  one  has  been  sitting  in  a  cathedral.  A  few 
blunt  remarks,  with  blood  to  Manon,  and  she  went  else- 
where. Two  tins  of  "Capstan"  and  some  French  mixture 
very  rich  in  latakia  were  put  away  in  the  string-bag.  The 
price  was  horrible,  but  was  she  not  getting  Paul's  sweat 
for  nothing? 

She  did  not  forget  the  dictionary,  though  it  was  not  a 
new  one;  newness  might  rouse  suspicions  if  it  happened 
to  fall  into  other  people's  hands.  Last  of  all  she  bought 
a  saw,  a  plane,  a  folding  measure,  some  garden  tools,  and 
a  soldering  set.  There  were  plenty  of  leaking  pots  and 
pans  in  Beaucourt,  and  Paul  was  a  man  of  resource. 

The  Casteners  were  waiting  for  her  at  the  auberge,  and 
they  sat  down  to  dinner.  Marie  waited  to  know  how 
Manon  had  fared  with  her  shopping. 

"These  shopkeepers  are  villains." 

"Oh,  well,  they  have  children,  most  of  them,"  said 
Manon,  thinking  of  the  widow.  "I  have  not  done  so  badly. 
I  suppose  we  shall  all  get  bargains  in  heaven." 

They  drove  round  to  collect  Manon's  bulkier  mer- 
chandise, and  then  left  the  grey  spire  of  Amiens  behind 
them.  Veuve  Castener  had  been  counting  the  number  of 
houses  they  passed  that  had  been  damaged  by  shell-fire 
during  the  war.  She  began  to  be  talkative,  stimulated  by 
the  rattle  of  the  wheels,  and  detailing  the  gossip  of  some 
of  the  French  soldiers  who  had  been  sent  home  to  their 
farms. 

"Yes,  worse  things  happened  than  the  wrecking  of 
houses.  There  are  those  sluts  who  became  too  friendly 
with  the  Boche.  Pierre  Ledru  was  saying  the  other  day 
that  there  were  French  girls  who  had  hidden  German 
soldiers — their  lovers.  Ledru  swore  that  one  girl  was  shot 
by  her  own  brother  for  taking  food  to  a  Square-head  who 
was  hiding  in  a  wood." 

"It's  easy  to  be  virtuous — over  here,"  said  Manon; 
"but  men  are  the  same  all  the  world  over.  I  know  what 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  115 

it  must  have  been  like  in  those  occupied  villages,  especially 
if  you  had  any  looks." 

"A  Frenchwoman  should  always  be  a  Frenchwoman." 

"Mon  ami,  people  do  all  sorts  of  strange  things  when 
they  are  starving.  But  why  talk  of  these  tragedies  ? 
Look  at  the  sun  over  there.  I  love  the  big  impartial  sun, 
he  gives  the  same  chance  to  everybody." 

"That's  right,  mother,"  said  Etienne;  "we  haven't 
had  the  boot  on  our  faces  like  those  people  nearer  the 
frontier.  Besides  a  man  has  got  such  a  pull ;  he  can  talk 
a  woman's  honour  away  if  she  won't  give  him  what  he's 
after." 

"Etienne  is  a  man  of  the  world,"  said  Manon. 

Veuve  Castener  grunted.  She  did  not  like  being  cor- 
rected by  her  son. 

It  was  after  supper  that  night,  and  Marie  Castener  was 
emptying  the  last  of  the  coffee  into  Manon's  cup,  when 
they  heard  a  man's  footsteps  outside  the  door.  He  knocked 
and  tried  the  handle,  but  the  door  was  bolted.  Veuve 
Castener  thought  it  was  Etienne,  for  Etienne  never  used 
his  voice  when  some  more  primitive  sort  of  sound  would 
serve.  Marie  went  to  the  door  and  opened  it,  and  dis- 
covered Louis  Blanc. 

Veuve  Castener's  big  body  filled  the  doorway.  She 
said  nothing.  Her  bulk  and  her  silence  kept  Bibi  on  the 
doorstep. 

"Good  evening,  madame." 

He  had  looked  over  Marie's  shoulder  and  seen  Manon 
sitting  at  the  table  in  the  yellow  circle  of  light  thrown  by 
the  lamp. 

"Good  evening,  Madame  Latour." 

Bibi  pushed  the  words  past  Veuve  Castener,  since  her 
big  body  kept  him  out  of  the  room. 

Manon  looked  up. 

"Good  evening,  Monsieur  Blanc." 

She  replied  to  him  with  an  air  of  complete  unconcern, 
betraying  neither  interest  nor  antagonism. 

Bibi  scraped  his  boots  on  the  doorstep  and  removed 


116  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE 

his  hat.  You  might  take  liberties  when  you  were  alone 
with  one  woman,  but  you  were  polite  when  there  happened 
to  be  two  of  them. 

"Is  it  permitted  for  a  poor  man  to  come  in  and  sit 
down  for  ten  minutes?" 

He  smiled,  and  made  eyes  at  Marie. 

"I  have  a  few  words  to  say  to  Madame  Latour.  A 
business  matter,  you  know;  we  are  full  of  business  these 
days." 

Veuve  Castener  spoke  to  Manon  in  a  loud  voice,  as 
though  Bibi  were  on  the  other  side  of  a  field. 

"Here  is  Monsieur  Louis  Blanc  who  wishes  to  speak  to 
you,  Manon." 

"What  does  he  want  ?" 

"To  talk  about  business." 

"Oh,  let  him  in,"  said  Manon,  yawning  a  little. 

Bibi  was  angry  at  being  kept  on  the  doorstep,  and  at 
the  way  Mother  Castener  had  snubbed  him  by  talking  to 
Manon  as  though  he  were  not  there.  He  had  seen  Manon's 
yawn,  and  appreciated  the  flat  indifference  of  her  voice; 
the  diplomat  in  Bibi  was  ruffled.  His  swagger  had  lost  its 
fine  edge  and  became  a  more  brutal  weapon. 

Veuve  Castener  let  him  enter.  She  glanced  at  Manon, 
who  had  reached  for  her  work-basket  and  had  taken  out  a 
stocking  that  needed  darning,  also  wool  and  a  pair  of  scis- 
sors. She  dropped  the  scissors  into  her  lap. 

"I  am  going  to  wash  up." 

Manon  understood  what  was  in  Marie's  mind.  The 
wash-house  was  at  the  back  of  the  cottage,  and  was  reached 
by  crossing  a  brick-paved  yard.  Manon  nodded. 

"Sit  down,  monsieur." 

But  Bibi  remained  standing,  watching  Veuve  Castener 
clearing  away  the  plates,  his  hands  in  his  trouser  pockets. 
Manon  glanced  up  at  him  once  or  twice.  She  noticed  that 
Louis  Blanc  was  wearing  new  clothes,  a  well-cut  black  suit, 
new  boots,  a  light  waistcoat.  These  clothes  were  part  of 
Bibi's  "business  atmosphere";  he  was  a  fellow  who  had 
money. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE  117 

Veuve  Castener  disappeared  with  a  tray  full  of  dirty 
crockery.  Bibi  stood  quite  still  for  a  moment,  and  then 
went  and  closed  the  door  that  opened  on  the  yard.  He 
came  back  and  stared  at  Manon  across  the  table. 

"That  is  rather  unnecessary,  monsieur." 

"Indeed!" 

"You  and  I  have  nothing  to  say  to  each  other  that  my 
friend  may  not  hear." 

He  laughed,  one  of  those  soundless  laughs,  and  fidgeted 
his  hands  in  his  pockets. 

"You  are  still  devilish  pretty,  ma  petite." 

"And  you  are  still  a  fool." 

He  gave  her  a  vicious  yet  humorous  glance,  and  began 
to  walk  slowly  up  and  down,  his  boots  making  a  leisurely 
clatter  on  the  red-tiled  floor. 

"That  should  reassure  Madame  Gossip, — what!  So 
you  won't  have  sentiment,  not  even  from  me !  Let  us  try 
business,  my  dear." 

Manon  had  begun  darning  the  stocking.  She  looked 
Steadily  at  Bibi  for  a  moment. 

"Very  well,  keep  to  business.  What  is  it  that  you 
want?" 

He  swung  round  and  faced  her,  legs  straddling,  head 
thrown  back,  loins  hollowed,  pockets  and  belly  thrust 
forward. 

"A  partner." 

"What  for?" 

"You  want  me  to  give  the  whole  game  away,  do  you? 
Yea,  you  little  devil,  you  always  were  the  best  business 
woman  in  Beaucourt.  And  such  a  leg,  too." 

"Be  quick,"  said  Manon;  "I  am  going  to  help  Marie 
at  the  end  of  five  minutes." 

Bibi  smiled,  and  began  to  walk  up  and  down  again, 
and  Manon  noticed  that  his  track  tended  to  become  an 
orbit,  with  herself  as  the  centre.  Sometimes  he  was  behind 
her,  and  she  did  not  like  having  Bibi  behind  her,  but  she 
remained  quite  still  in  her  chair,  though  tense  as  a  steel 
spring. 


118  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

"I  am  going  to  make  money  in  Beaucourt.  A  little 
hotel — what!  well  advertised  for  the  people  with  hand- 
kerchiefs and  the  fools  of  Americans !  Kept  by  one  of  the 
veterans  of  Verdun,  with  the  Medaille  Militaire !  Aliens ! 
That's  all  right.  What  do  you  say  ?" 

Manon  went  on  with  her  work,  conscious  of  Bibi  stand- 
ing there  close  beside  her. 

"I  think  many  things,  monsieur." 

"Let's  have  them." 

"You  want  my  house.  It  is  in  better  condition  than 
yours,  is  it  not?" 

"Tiens!     What  cleverness!" 

"You  would  like  to  have  your  own  way  in  Beaucourt, 
not  an  hotel  or  a  cafe  within  twenty  kilometres." 

"Go  on  guessing,  ma  petite." 

"That  is  all,  monsieur." 

And  then  he  bent  over  her  suddenly  from  behind, 
tweaked  her  ear,  and  caught  her  by  the  shoulders.  It  had 
always  been  his  way  with  women,  to  surprise  them,  get 
them  into  his  arms.  The  magnetic  male  was  very  strong 
in  Bibi;  he  had  known  women  who  had  fought  and  then 
given  him  all  that  he  wanted. 

Manon  had  been  waiting  for  that  attack.  She  had 
expected  it,  knowing  Bibi  as  she  did.  She  said  nothing, 
but  picking  up  the  scissors,  made  a  deft  jab  at  Louis 
Blanc's  left  wrist. 

"Keep  your  hands  to  yourself,  if  you  please." 

She  had  challenged  the  beast  in  Bibi,  and  she  sat  there 
pretending  to  go  on  with  her  work,  drawing  her  breath 
a  little  more  deeply,  ready  to  spring  up,  and  to  call  for 
Marie  Castener.  Bibi  had  removed  his  hands  from  her 
shoulders,  and  was  sucking  his  left  wrist.  She  had  drawn 
blood,  quite  a  good  red  trickle  of  it. 

"I  think  that  is  all,  monsieur." 

She  saw  him  come  back  from  behind  her  chair  and 
move  to  the  other  side  of  the  table.  He  had  pulled  out 
a  blue  handkerchief  and  was  wrapping  it  round  his  wrist. 

"Your  scissors  are  as  sharp  as  your  tongue.     A  nice 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  119 

•way  to  receive  a  man  who  comes  to  propose  a  little  bit 
of  business." 

"What  a  fool  you  are,"  she  said  very  quietly.  "Don't 
you  see  that  you  cannot  do  with  me  what  you  have  done 
with  other  women  ?  You  are  not  the  sort  of  man  who 
appeals  to  me.  You  are  only  wasting  your  time." 

Bibi  stared  at  her  a  moment. 

"It  is  as  well  to  know  these  things,"  he  said  coolly; 
"nothing  like  having  reconnoitred  the  other  fellow's  bit 
of  trench.  Shall  I  tell  old  Mother  Castener  that  the  talk 
is  over?" 

"I  am  going  out  there  myself.     Good-night,  monsieur." 

Louis  Blanc  picked  up  his  hat  and  opened  the  door. 
He  stood  there  for  a  couple  of  seconds  as  though  he  were 
about  to  say  something,  but  he  said  nothing,  and  when 
he  closed  the  door  he  did  it  very  quietly.  Manon  heard 
him  walk  away. 

"A  nice  neighbour  to  have,"  she  said  to  herself.  "I 
wonder  if  Paul  can  fight  ?" 


XVIII 

HORSES  were  scarce  in  Ste.  Claire,  and  Manon  found 
that  Etienne  Castener  could  not  hire  himself  and  his 
brown  nag  to  her  more  than  once  a  week,  so  she  made 
a  bundle  of  the  things  Brent  needed  and  prepared  to  walk 
to  Beaucourt.  It  was  rather  a  wonderful  bundle,  an 
omnium  gatherum  of  tobacco,  matches,  nails,  six  fresh 
eggs,  some  brussels  sprouts,  half  a  loaf  of  bread,  six  slices 
of  fresh  meat,  a  few  oranges,  three  candles,  a  new  shirt, 
a  pair  of  blue  trousers  and  the  dictionary.  Marie  watched 
the  making  of  the  bundle,  and  withheld  her  criticism  until 
the  end. 

"You  are  not  going  to  carry  that  to  Beaucourt?" 

"Yes,  but  I  am.  There  is  a  saw,  too,  that  will  have  to 
travel  under  my  arm." 

Marie  felt  the  weight  of  the  bundle. 

"Oh,  la-la,  it  is  too  heavy!" 

"I  am  stronger  than  you  think.  See,  I  push  a  stick 
through  the  cord,  put  a  pad  between  the  stick  and  my 
shoulder,  and  there  you  are !" 

She  was  away  at  five  o'clock,  after  a  simple  breakfast 
by  lamplight  in  the  red-tiled  cottage.  The  morning  was 
very  dark  and  still,  one  of  those  mysterious  and  secret 
mornings  when  the  heart  thrills  not  a  little  to  the  eternal 
adventure  of  life.  There  had  been  a  frost,  and  the  air 
struck  keen  and  clear,  with  the  smell  of  fresh  earth  that 
some  peasant  had  turned  up  with  his  plough.  A  few  stars 
pricked  the  black  sky.  The  great  poplars  guarding  the 
road  were  still  wrapped  up  in  their  coats  of  darkness  and 
of  sleep,  and  as  Manon  passed  along  the  road  and  up  the 
hill  she  felt  rather  than  saw  the  branches  of  those  trees 
meeting  like  a  high  vault  above  her  head. 

She  trudged  along  with  her  bundle  slung  over  one 
120 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  121 

shoulder,  and  the  saw  swathed  in  paper  under  the  other 
arm,  not  hurrying  because  of  her  knowledge  of  the  twenty 
kilometres  that  were  to  be  marched  that  day,  and  of  the 
work  she  wished  to  do  at  Beaucourt.  She  was  a  little 
woman  with  a  great  heart;  also — she  was  happy.  The 
blackness  of  the  morning  seemed  to  shut  her  up  with  her 
own  thoughts,  and  Manon's  thoughts  were  many  and 
varied  as  she  pushed  steadily  along  the  road.  The  ele- 
ments of  life  were  mixed  up  with  her  thifrking,  and  if,  as 
the  clever  people  tell  us,  ordinary  thinking  is  but  the  glow 
thrown  up  by  the  emotions,  then  Manon's  thoughts  were 
made  of  human  stuff.  She  felt — and  in  feeling  she  knew, 
and  in  knowing  grasped  the  quaint  and  seemingly  irra- 
tional altruism  of  this  English  Paul,  the  essential  bad- 
ness of  Bibi — the  great  truth  that  some  people  give  while 
others  take.  If  you  do  not  give  you  will  never  know 
what  life  can  give  you  in  return.  Manon's  view  of  life 
was  quite  simple  yet  shrewd.  Men  had  to  be  managed. 
It  was  very  necessary  for  a  woman  to  have  someone  to 
love;  she  withered  into  a  stick  without  it.  Happiness 
can  be  planned,  if  you  love  someone  very  much,  and  go 
about  the  managing  of  your  happiness  like  a  cheerful 
little  housewife.  Simple  things  matter.  Men  like  to 
be  praised,  women  to  be  kissed.  Always  back  your  man 
with  your  tongue,  finger-nails  and  heart.  A  comfortable 
bed,  a  well-cooked  meal,  and  a  glass  of  wine  at  the  right 
moment  are  worth  oceans  of  wise  verbiage.  A  woman 
should  never  marry  a  man  who  was  not  a  little  shy  before 
he  kissed  her  for  the  first  time.  Greedy  eaters  are  soon 
satisfied. 

She  trudged  on,  shifting  her  bundle  from  shoulder  to 
shoulder,  and  presently  the  dawn  came,  a  greyness  that 
grew  red  like  a  fire.  The  bare  trees  of  a  wood  showed  up 
against  it,  the  branches  like  some  exquisitely  carved  rood- 
screen  in  a  church.  She  heard  a  bird  pipe  up  somewhere 
in  the  wood,  and  then  another  and  yet  another  till  a 
good  score  were  singing,  for  the  birds  had  multiplied 
during  the  war.  Beyond  the  wood  a  great  sweep  of  black 


122  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

and  desolate  country  cut  like  a  broad  knife  at  the  red 
throat  of  the  dawn.  A  solitary  house  with  half  its  roof 
gone,  the  broken  stump  of  a  tree,  a  rifle,  butt  end  upwards, 
marking  a  grave,  a  pair  of  wagon-wheels  in  a  shell-hole, 
all  these  were  like  black  symbols  against  that  red  sky. 
Yet  there  was  a  silence  over  this  wilderness,  a  beauty,  a 
strangeness  that  called;  and  over  yonder  lay  Beaucourt, 
waiting,  waiting  for  those  who  would  return. 

"Yes,  it's  beautiful/'  said  Manon  to  herself;  "notre 
pays  est  malade;  it  calls  for  help.  The  strong  ought  to 
help  the  weak.  I  must  not  forget  that;  my  little  house  is 
not  going  to  stuff  itself  with  food  and  do  nothing  for  the 
others.  What  a  pity  all  the  Bibis  in  the  world  weren't 
killed  in  the  war! — it  would  have  made  things  so  much 
easier,  and  I  have  an  idea  that  Bibi  is  going  to  be  a 
nuisance.  I  wonder  what  Paul  is  doing?  Lighting  the 
stove  ?" 

Her  thoughts  centred  on  Paul,  and  somehow  this  wild 
landscape  with  the  red  sky  turning  to  a  tawny  gold  swept 
away  any  little  feeling  of  surprise  that  had  lingered  in 
Manon's  mind.  The  wind  blew  as  it  pleased  over  these 
leagues  of  desolate  country.  Life  was  a  going  back  to  the 
wilderness— a  fight,  face  to  face,  with  the  elements  in 
Mature  and  in  man.  The  little  stuffy  conventions  had  no 
roof  under  which  to  create  a  moral  fog.  You  went  out  into 
the  open  with  your  man  and  laboured  till  the  sweat  ran 
from  you,  swinging  axe  and  hammer,  or  plying  hoe  and 
spade.  Courage  and  a  clear  faith  in  your  comrade,  that 
was  how  Manon  sensed  it.  Adam  and  Eve,  with  God 
looking  on,  and  the  Serpent  out  of  a  job. 

Some  three  hours  later  Manon  came  to  Beaucourt  in 
the  blue  of  a  March  morning.  A  great  white  wall  stood  up 
at  the  west  end  of  the  village  like  a  gigantic  notice  board 
waiting  for  a  message ;  the  wall  had  been  part  of  the  fac- 
tory owner's  house. 

"Yes,  there  ought  to  be  something  on  that,"  said  Manon, 
smiling  in  the  eyes  of  the  morning. 

"Beware  of  Bibi  I"  she  laughed. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  123 

"Or,  Tommy's  word,  'Cheero/  or  just  'Courage.'  " 

She  left  the  road  and  made  her  way  over  the  higher 
ground,  through  the  orchards  above  the  Rue  Romaine,  and 
from  this  hill  she  had  a  view  of  the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire 
and  a  little  human  glimpse  of  Paul  Brent.  He  had  fixed 
up  a  length  of  telephone  wire  in  the  garden,  and  Manon 
saw  him  in  the  act  of  hanging  out  his  washing — a  shirt, 
two  pairs  of  socks,  and  the  things  that  he  wore  under  his 
trousers. 

Now  Manon  was  strangely  touched  by  that  glimpse  of 
him.  She  was  smiling,  but  there  was  a  little  shimmer  of 
tenderness  in  her  smile. 

"Mon  ami,  I  would  have  done  that  for  you.  But  it 
is  rather  sweet  seeing  you  playing  the  blanchisseuse." 

When  she  came  down  the  hill  into  the  Rue  de  Picardie 
she  noticed  that  the  shell-holes  in  the  walls  of  the  house 
had  disappeared.  Two  neat  new  patches  of  brickwork  had 
been  put  in,  and  Brent  had  used  facing  bricks  of  the  same 
colour  as  the  walls  of  the  house  so  that  the  new  work  was 
hardly  noticeable.  He  had  got  the  bedding-plates  into 
place  along  the  tops  of  the  walls.  Between  one  of  the  end 
gables  and  the  inverted  Y  of  the  main  partition  wall  a 
length  of  timber  hung  suspended  in  the  air  by  two  lengths 
of  telephone  wire,  some  ingenious  contraption  of  Brent's 
for  overcoming  the  problem  of  how  a  man  could  be  in  two 
places  at  the  same  time. 

"Paul,  hallo !" 

He  came  through  the  old  blue  door  in  the  garden  wall, 
and  stood  a  moment,  looking  down  at  her  from  the  raised 
path.  He  had  not  expected  her.  The  surprise  and  the 
pleasure  of  it  we^re  as  obvious  as  the  blue  sky. 

"What !— You  have  walked  ?" 

"Yes." 

And  suddenly  she  was  aware  of  a  new  shyness  in  Paul 
Brent.  He  was  looking  at  her  as  a  man  only  looks  at 
a  woman  when  she  has  become  the  most  wonderful  thing 
in  the  world.  He  came  down  from  the  path  and  took 
her  bundle. 


124  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

"You  have  carried  this  from  Ste.  Claire?" 

His  shyness  spread  to  Manon.  She  laughed.  The 
feeling  was  rather  exquisite,  a  little  shiver  of  delight,  the 
first  note  of  a  bird  on  a  soft  spring  morning. 

"Do  I  look  tired?" 

"A  little." 

She  noticed  that  he  seemed  afraid  to  look  straight 
into  her  eyes. 

"Well,  there  was  no  horse  to  be  had  to-day,  and  in 
war  the  transport  must  not  fail — and  here's  the  saw." 

He  took  it  with  an  air  of  eagerness,  pulled  off  the  wrap- 
pings, and  looked  along  the  line  of  the  teeth. 

"Oh,  great !     I  have  been  wanting  it  badly." 

And  then  she  fell  to  admiring  the  work  he  had  done, 
and  Brent  stood  and  smiled  as  a  shy  man  smiles  on  such 
occasions. 

"It  is  splendid,"  said  Manon ;  "you  would  hardly  know 
that  there  had  been  holes  in  the  wall.  How  clever  you 
are  with  your  hands." 

"I  learnt  the  business  when  I  was  no  taller  than  you 
are." 

"And  you  have  been  so  quick.  I  was  astonished. 
And  then — the  poor  man— has  had  to  do  his  own  wash- 
ing!" 

"I  had  a  hot  bath  last  night,  and  afterwards,  I  washed 
the  clothes.  Well,  you  see,  they  wanted  it." 

She  patted  the  bundle. 

"I  have  something  for  you  in  there.  And  tell  me, 
Paul,  what  is  that  beam  doing,  hung  up  there?" 

"Oh,  that  ridge-beam,"  said  Brent ;  "it's  a  bit  awkward 
to  get  it  into  place,  and  I  had  rigged  up  that  cradle,  but  I 
can  do  the  job  to-day  with  a  little  help." 

"We  will  do  it  together.  And  now,  have  you  had  break- 
fast ?  Because  I  could  eat  a  second  one." 

"So  could  I." 

"An  omelette  and  coffee  ?'' 

"I  can't  resist  an  omelette,  but  what  about  the  eggs?" 

"They  are  in  that  bundle.     Do  be  careful." 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  125 

"Trust  me,"  said  Brent. 

Paul  had  cleaned  and  fitted  the  stove  in  Manon's 
kitchen,  and  she  did  her  cooking  there  while  Paul  went  out 
to  try  the  saw.  He  had  contrived  a  carpenter's  bench  in 
the  front  room  on  the  other  side  of  the  passage,  using  boxes 
and  the  floor  boards  from  one  of  the  huts.  There  were 
some  two  by  four  battens  to  be  worked  up  into  a  door- 
frame, and  Brent  squared  the  ends  off  with  the  new  saw. 

"It  cuts  like  butter,"  he  called  to  Manon. 

"Butter !  Oh,  mon  ami,  have  you  any  butter  left  ?  I 
have  forgotten  to  bring  some." 

"Yes,  quite  a  good-sized  pat." 

"Thank  God !     How  near  we  were  to  a  tragedy." 

Half  an  hour  later  they  sat  down  in  the  kitchen  to  that 
second  breakfast.  Manon  had  taken  off  her  shoes  in  order 
to  rest  her  feet,  and  she  told  an  heroic  lie  when  Brent 
accused  her  of  having  blistered  them  in  walking  from  Ste. 
Claire.  The  omelette  was  excellent,  golden  food  for  the 
gods,  and  so  was  the  French  bread  after  a  season  of  army 
biscuits  and  ration  jam. 

Manon  Latour  found  herself  looking  at  Paul  as  many  a 
savage  woman  must  have  looked  at  the  man  whom  she  had 
chosen  for  a  partner.  Strength  might  matter  in  Beaucourt, 
and  Paul  Brent  looked  strong.  He  had  a  good  chest  and 
shoulders,  and  a  squarish  and  intelligent  head  well  set  on  a 
sinewy  neck.  She  had  seen  him  with  his  shirt-sleeves 
rolled  up,  and  remembered  noticing  how  big  and  powerful 
his  arms  were.  She  knew  that  Paul  was  not  the  man  who 
would  fight  for  the  mere  love  of  fighting.  There  was  too 
little  of  the  animal  about  him  for  such  savagery.  More- 
over, he  was  too  good-tempered,  though  when  a  good- 
tempered  man  gets  angry,  the  fire  is  all  the  more  to  be 
feared. 

"All  Englishmen  can  box;  is  not  that  so,  mon  ami?" 

Paul  was  drinking  his  third  cup  of  coffee.  He  set  the 
cup  down  and  stared  at  Manon. 

"No.     Why?" 

"»Tt  is  useful.     And  you ?" 


126  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

"I  have  never  boxed  in  my  life,"  said  Brent. 

He  saw  the  faintest  of  faint  frowns  on  her  forehead. 
Bibi  could  box,  and  his  boxing  included  tricks  with  his 
feet. 

And  then  she  began  to  tell  him  about  Bibi,  how  he  had 
come  to  her  and  suggested  a  partnership,  but  she  did  not 
tell  Paul  that  Louis  Blanc  had  tried  to  get  her  into  his 
arms. 

"You  see  we  quarrelled,  and  I  packed  him  out  of  the 
house,  and  now  we  are  in  his  way.  His  idea  is  to  attract 
the  tourists  to  Beaucourt,  charge  them  ten  francs  a  bottle 
for  wretched  wine,  sell  them  souvenirs,  and  all  that.  It 
will  take  months  to  get  that  hotel  of  his  rebuilt,  and  this 
place  of  mine  would  have  suited  him  very  well  while  he 
was  rebuilding  the  hotel.  You  will  have  to  be  very  care- 
ful of  Bibi." 

Brent's  hand  had  felt  instinctively  for  his  pipe.  Manon 
flaw  it,  and  leaning  over,  took  a  tin  of  tobacco  out  of  her 
bundle. 

"Voila!    And  English  too !" 

His  eyes  lit  up,  not  merely  at  the  sight  of  the  tobacco, 
but  because  she  had  remembered. 

"That's  good  of  you,  Manon.  What  did  you  pay  for 
it?" 

"That  is  my  affair." 

"Nonsense.     I  am  not  going  to  let  you  pay." 

"This  time  it  is  a  present,"  she  said;  "and  when  you 
wish  to  pay  for  the  next  you  will  have  to  send  me  in  a  bill 
for  the  work  you  have  done." 

But  he  was  annoyed. 

"Look  here,  I  have  fifteen  hundred  francs  down  in 
the  cellar." 

"Very  well,  you  shall  give  me  ten  presently,  if  you 
promise  not  to  argue  every  time.  Don't  you  see  that  I 
wish  to  make  some  return?" 

Brent's  face  softened. 

"I  am  sorry,"  he  said ;  "it  is  like  you  to  put  it  in  that 
way." 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  127 

He  opened  the  tin,  filled  his  pipe,  lit  it  and  puffed  with, 
immense  relish. 

"Now,  what  about  this  prize  bully,  Monsieur  Blanc? 
Do  you  mean  to  say  that  he  may  come  along  and  try  to 
frighten  me  out  of  Beaucourt  ?" 

"That  is  just  what  I  do  mean,"  said  Manon;  "you  do 
not  know  Bibi  as  I  do." 

Brent's  eyes  glimmered. 

"I  have  met  men  like  that.  But  they  always  left  me 
alone.  I  used  to  laugh  at  them — and  get  on  with  my 
work.  You  can't  quarrel  with  a  gatepost." 

"Bibi  would,"  said  Manon ;  "he's  a  savage.  Do  you  know 
what  he  did  once?" 

"Well?" 

"There  was  a  bull  on  one  of  the  farms,  a  fierce  beast. 
It  chased  Bibi  one  day;  he  had  to  run.  What  does  he  do 
but  come  to  Beaucourt,  pick  up  an  axe,  and  go  back  to 
fight  the  bull.  And  he  killed  it,  battered  its  head  all  to 
bits,  and  then  paid  the  owner.  Threw  the  money  at  him, 
Bibi  likes  a  swaggering  gesture." 

"What  a  pleasant  brute,"  said  Brent,  but  the  glimmer 
had  gone  out  of  his  eyes. 

Manon  began  putting  on  her  shoes. 

"I  wanted  you  to  know.  You  see,  if  Bibi  tried  to  hurt 
you,  it  would  be  because  of  me." 

"I  don't  ask  for  a  better  reason,"  he  said,  looking  her 
straight  in  the  eyes. 

And  Manon  coloured.  She  bent  over  and  picked  up 
the  bundle,  and  began  to  place  the  things  in  order  upon 
the  table. 


XIX 

watched  Manon  arrange  all  this  merchandise  of 
hers  upon  the  table,  the  yellow  oranges,  the  blue  linen 
trousers,  and  the  white  and  blue  striped  shirt,  the  tobacco, 
matches,  and  candles,  the  old  brown-covered  dictionary, 
the  fresh  greens  from  Veuve  Castener's  garden,  the  slices 
of  cooked  meat  wrapped  up  in  a  page  of  Le  Petit  Journal. 
It  was  a  wonderful  bundle  that  she  had  carried  from  Ste. 
Claire,  and  Brent  was  touched  by  all  the  little  things  that 
she  had  troubled  to  remember.  After  those  three  days 
of  separation  this  visit  of  hers  to  Beaucourt  with  this 
weight  of  good  human  stuff  on  her  sturdy  shoulders  seemed 
to  give  to  their  partnership  an  essential  French  and  in- 
timate solidity.  Brent  felt  that  he  mattered  to  Manon. 
She  had  shopped  for  him,  and  shouldered  the  merchandise 
ten  miles.  A  shallow  man  would  have  felt  flattered, 
but  to  Brent  it  brought  a  sense  of  warmth  to  the  heart. 

"Manon?" 

She  looked  up,  smiling. 

"We  are  going  to  argue  again  as  we  argued  over  the 
tobacco." 

"Oh,  very  well,"  she  said  with  a  little  gleam  of  her 
brown  eyes. 

She  felt  in  the  pocket  of  her  skirt  for  her  purse,  opened 
it  with  serious  deliberation,  and  picked  out  a  few  francs 
and  some  paper  money.  She  unfolded  the  notes,  one  of 
fifty  francs,  two  of  ten,  and  three  of  five,  and  spread  them 
on  the  table,  putting  an  orange  on  each  to  keep  them  from 
blowing  away. 

"We  are  going  to  be  very  businesslike.  Let  us  see; 
I  suppose  you  are  working  here  at  least  ten  hours  a  day, 
and  I  can  afford  to  pay  you  a  franc  an  hour.  Five  days 
128 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  129 

of  ten  hours  makes  fifty  francs.  So  I  begin  by  paying  you 
fifty  francs." 

She  held  out  the  fifty-franc  note  to  him,  but  Paul  made 
no  effort  to  take  it. 

She  pretended  to  be  surprised. 

"Isn't  it  enough?" 

Brent  looked  at  her  quickly. 

"I  don't  take  your  money." 

She  flourished  the  note. 

"There  you  are !  How  logical !  And  I  don't  take  your 
money,  Paul,  so  there  is  the  end  of  it." 

Paul  answered  her  with  a  slow,  uneasy  smile. 

"That  is  all  very  well,  but  a  man  can't  live  on  a  woman." 

And  then  she  scolded  him  with  a  sudden  fierceness  that 
made  Brent  think  that  she  was  angry. 

"Do  not  be  so  foolish;  you  are  not  living  on  me. 
What  should  I  do  if  I  had  no  one  to  help  me  here  ?  Think. 
Men  who  can  use  their  hands  and  their  heads  are  going  to 
be  little  gods  in  a  place  like  Beaucourt.  Men  are  scarce  in 
France;  we  have  lost  so  many  of  them  and  there  is  so 
much  to  do.  Are  we  partners,  or  are  we  not  ?  If  we  are 
partners  I  pay  you  good  money,  and  you  pay  me  for 
what  I  buy  for  you ;  and  if  you  quarrel  about  the  money, 
mon  Dieu,  I  will  give  you  the  sack !" 

They  burst  out  laughing — both  of  them — at  the  idea  ol 
Paul  being  sacked. 

"There,  you  see  how  ridiculous  you  were  making  things, 
wanting  to  be  so  proud." 

"Yes,  but  wait  a  minute.  Supposing  I  decided  that  I 
should  like  you  to  buy  me  a  piano." 

"Then  I  should  begin  to  think  that  Paul  had  been  at 
the  red  wine.  You  are  not  made  that  way.  You  give; 
you  would  always  be  wanting  to  give.  Now,  be  a  good 
man  and  go  and  try  on  that  shirt  and  those  trousers." 

Paul  went  like  an  obedient  boy,  and  re-appeared  some 
five  minutes  later,  looking  quaintly  self-conscious. 

"They  feel  just  right." 

She  turned  him  round  with  a  dominant  forefinger. 


130  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

"You  must  take  care  of  your  good  clothes.  I  have 
bought  you  a  fine  pair  of  velour-a-cotes  trousers  for  Sun- 
days, and  a  little  black  jacket.  Those  linen  trousers  will 
wash.  And  now — I  am  quite  rested ;  let  us  work." 

That  swinging  ridge-beam  overhead  was  the  first  thing 
to  be  tackled.  Paul  went  up  the  ladder  and  straddled  his 
way  up  the  gable  end  to  the  chimney-stack,  and  gave 
his  directions  to  Manon.  She  had  grasped  what  he  wanted 
her  to  do,  and  had  run  out  into  the  yard  and  got  hold  of 
the  telephone  wire  whose  lower  end  was  fastened  to  a  bit 
of  an  iron  bar  that  Brent  had  driven  into  the  ground. 

"I  pull?" 

"That's  it." 

There  was  a  slot  in  the  throat  of  the  chimney-stack 
where  the  original  beam  had  taken  its  bearing,  and  Manon 
pulled  on  the  stout  wire  until  Paul  held  up  his  hand.  He 
lay  along  a  sloping  bit  of  wall,  and  guided  the  end  of  his 
beam  into  the  slot. 

"All  right.    Fasten  the  wire  again." 

He  scrambled  down,  shifted  the  ladder,  and  climbed 
the  partition  wall.  Manon  had  run  round  into  the  room 
below  and  had  hold  of  the  other  wire. 

"Ready." 

She  raised  the  beam,  waiting  for  Paul's  signal 

"Enough." 

He  worked  the  end  into  the  slot  at  the  top  of  the  parti- 
tion wall,  and  the  thing  was  done. 

Manon  clapped  her  hands. 

"How  exciting !     Now,  what  next  ?" 

Paul  came  down  to  the  top  of  the  front  wall  of  the  house. 

"I  want  to  try  one  of  the  rafters  from  the  hut  One 
of  those  long  things  there.  If  you  could  give  me  the  end 
of  it " 

She  did  so,  and  Paul  tried  a  balancing  feat,  like 
Blondin  with  a  pole.  He  had  braced  the  wooden  sleepers 
together  so  that  they  lay  solidly  along  the  top  of  the  wall, 
and  resting  the  butt  of  the  rafter  against  one  of  them,  he 
prepared  to  lower  it  towards  the  ridge-beam. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  131 

"Hallo !     Just  a  minute." 

He  had  paused. 

"If  the  thing  falls,  our  crockery  may  suffer.  Pull  that 
table  into  the  corner." 

Manon  pushed  the  table  into  a  safe  place,  and  watched 
Brent  handle  that  length  of  timber.  It  was  a  ticklish  job; 
an  attack  of  nerves  or  some  lack  of  balance  might  have 
landed  him  down  below  with  a  broken  neck.  Moreover, 
it  was  a  test  of  strength ;  and  when  the  rafter  came  to  rest 
with  some  three  inches  of  its  end  projecting  over  the 
ridge-beam,  Manon  sent  up  a  little  cry  of  applause  and 
triumph. 

"Oh,  mon  ami,  splendid!     And  how  strong  you  are." 

It  was  the  man  who  dominated  for  the  moment  their 
little  world  of  adventure,  the  man  with  the  strong  hand 
and  the  contriving  head.  Brent  stood  looking  down  at  her 
and  smiling. 

"Now,  then,  the  hammer  and  gimlet,  a  packetful  of 
long  nails,  and  the  saw.  I  shall  have  half  those  rafters 
up  to-day." 

She  collected  the  tools  and  nails,  made  two  journeys  up 
the  ladder  and  handed  them  to  Brent.  One  end  of  the 
rafter  was  all  ready  cut  to  fit  on  the  bedding-plate  and 
Brent  secured  it  with  a  nail  driven  half  home,  and  then 
went  up  the  slope  of  the  partition  wall,  sawed  off  the 
upper  end  at  an  angle  so  that  it  dropped  flush  against  the 
ridge-beam,  and  drove  nails  home. 

"Now — it  is  going  to  be  easy." 

He  told  Manon  to  fasten  another  rafter  to  the  end  of 
the  wire  that  they  had  used  for  raising  the  end  of  the 
ridge-beam,  he  pulled  it  up,  unfastened  the  wire,  ran  the 
rafter  down  the  opposite  slope  of  the  partition  wall,  rolled 
it  over  till  it  was  on  a  line  with  the  rafter  on  the  other 
side,  shaped  the  upper  end  with  the  saw,  and  nailed  it 
to  the  beam;  with  the  two  lower  ends  fastened  to  the 
sleepers  on  the  wall  Brent  had  completed  his  first  span. 

The  rest  was  repetition,  with  Manon  acting  as  ladder 
boy,  and  Paul  working  along  a  framework  that  grevf 


132  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

stronger  and  more  rigid  with  each  pair  of  rafters  that  were 
fixed. 

Half-way  through  the  morning  Brent  told  Manon  to 
rest. 

"You  have  another  thirteen  kilometres  to  walk,  and 
I  can  get  along  on  my  own." 

"Very  well,  I  am  going  to  cook  your  dinner." 

"Is  that  resting?" 

"Of  course.  I  sit  on  a  chair  between  the  stove  and 
the  table.  But  take  care,  you  must  not  drop  sawdust 
into  my  frying-pan." 

"I  have  too  much  respect  for  my  dinner." 

So  Manon  collected  wood  and  her  pots  and  pans,  and 
did  her  cooking  in  the  roofless  kitchen,  while  Brent  scram- 
bled up  above,  hammering,  sawing,  and  whistling 
"Roses  in  Picardie,"  his  blue  trousers  more  vivid  than 
the  blue  of  the  sky.  He  was  happy  and  strenuous,  and 
kept  up  such  a  merry  piping  that  he  made  Manon  think 
of  a  jolly  bird  in  a  cage.  She  sat  and  watched  him  with 
soft  eyes. 

"Quel  oiseau  y  at-il?" 

Brent  looked  down  from  his  rafters  and  laughed. 

"A  blue  bird,  Madame  Taquine.  Blue  birds  are 
lucky." 

"The  bird  shall  have  a  glass  of  wine  for  dinner.  And 
what  is  that  pretty  song  you  whistle  ?" 

He  told  her,  and  she  began  to  imitate  him,  picking  up 
the  melody  and  whistling  it  while  she  fed  the  fire. 

"Now,  there  are  two  birds  in  a  cage,"  she  called  up  at 
him,  "and  what  am  I  ?  A  black  bird  with  brown  eyes  ?" 

Perched  up  against  the  blue  sky  and  climbing  about 
the  increasing  intricacies  of  his  roof  timbers,  Paul  devel- 
oped a  healthy  hunger,  and  the  savoury  smell  of  Manon's 
cooking  drifted  up  to  him  from  below.  All  his  old  "tool 
sense"  was  coming  back,  and  he  was  working  with  a  speed 
and  a  precision  that  would  have  damned  him  in  the  world 
of  Go  Slow.  But  then  Paul  had  an  object,  a  spark  of  the 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  133 

sacred  fire,  and  the  little  capitalist  down  below  there — 
even  Manon — who  employed  him,  would  have  opened  her 
eyes  very  wide  if  he  had  preached  by  his  acts  the  Religion 
of  Slackness.  Paul  had  seen  her  slip  away  into  the  garden 
and  begin  digging  in  the  corner  where  the  iron  summer 
house  stood.  She  returned,  holding  up  a  bottle  of  wine 
to  encourage  her  man. 

"Now  you  know  where  it  is." 

She  felt  that  the  wine  was  as  safe  as  the  silver. 

The  dinner  was  all  that  a  dinner  should  be,  and  they 
drank  the  health  of  the  new  roof.  To  Manon's  eyes  the 
house  began  to  look  quite  "dressed,"  and  already  she  saw 
herself  voyaging  over  from  Ste.  Claire  in  Etienne 
Castener's  big  blue  cart  with  the  bits  of  furniture  she  had 
collected,  and  turning  the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire  into  a  home. 
This  house  of  hers  would  lead  the  way  in  Beaucourt,  and 
stand  as  a  live  thing  to  encourage  the  others. 

"I  want  to  look  again  at  Bibi's  house." 

Her  watch  told  her  that  she  would  have  to  be  on  the 
march  in  half  an  hour,  and  there  was  the  washing  up  to 
be  done.  She  was  not  going  to  leave  Paul  with  a  lot  of 
dirty  crockery. 

"You  can  heat  up  the  meat  and  the  vegetables  for 
another  meal,"  she  told  him,  "and  perhaps  you  know  how 
to  fry  eggs." 

"I  can  boil  them  and  judge  the  time,"  laughed  Paul. 

When  Manon  was  ready  for  the  road,  Brent  walked  with 
her  by  way  of  the  Rue  de  Picardie  to  look  at  the  Hotel  de 
Paris.  The  place,  standing  as  it  did  at  the  cross-roads, 
had  suffered  badly  from  shell-fire,  and  the  ragged  walla 
rose  out  of  a  deplorable  chaos  of  rubbish — old  iron  and 
broken  brick.  It  had  been  a  biggish  building,  and  Brent 
saw  that  the  house  had  gathered  itself  round  the  great 
central  mass  of  brickwork  in  which  were  the  chimney  flues, 
a  mass  of  brickwork  that  stood  like  a  lonely  tower  in 
the  middle  of  the  ruin.  The  main  beams  of  the  roof 
and  floors  had  taken  their  bearings  from  this  central 


134  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

tower.  The  staircase  had  curled  round  it,  and  in  any 
reconstructive  scheme  this  mass  of  brickwork  would  serve 
as  a  point  d'appui. 

Brent  climbed  over  the  rubbish  and  examined  the 
chimney-stack  with  the  eyes  of  an  expert.  There  was  a 
great  crack  running  up  one  side  of  it,  a  crack  that  spread 
upwards  from  a  raw  chasm  at  the  base  of  the  mass  where 
a  shell  had  exploded.  A  good  third  of  the  foundations 
had  been  blown  away,  and  the  whole  pile  seemed  to  bal- 
ance itself  precariously  on  the  edge  of  the  shell  crater. 

Manon  had  followed  Brent  over  the  heaps  of  brick. 

"Look  at  that,"  and  he  pointed  at  Louis  Blanc's 
chimney-stack. 

"It  seems  ready  to  fall." 

Brent  was  frowning. 

"Half-an-hour's  work  with  a  pick,  or  a  Mill's  hand- 
grenade,  and  a  bit  of  wind,  and  the  thing  would  come 
down  like  an  old  factory  chimney.  Take  that  gable  end 
of  the  house  with  it  too,  probably, — and  put  our  dear 
friend  back  for  weeks." 

Manon's  eyes  met  his. 

"It  would  be  a  blow  to  Bibi?" 

"Well — that  brick  stack  is  going  to  be  very  useful  when 
they  begin  reconstructing  the  house.  And  if  it  fell  it 
would  be  pretty  sure  to  bring  that  wall  down." 

"But  we  could  not  do  it,  Paul." 

Her  face  had  a  touch  of  fierceness. 

"It  would  be  such  a  dirty  trick,  the  sort  of  trick  that 
Bibi  would  play  on  other  people." 

"I  thought  you  would  say  that,"  he  told  her,  with  a 
significant  little  smile. 

"Then  you  wanted  to  find  out ?" 

"Yes." 

"O  my  Paul,"  she  said. 

Brent  looked  sheepish. 

"I  should  have  known  that  you  had  some  strong  reason 
—that  the  fellow  is  such  a  beast." 

"He  may  be  that,  but  we  could  not  fight  him  in  that 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  135 

way.  I  don't  believe  you  would  have  done  it,  Paul,  even 
if  I  had  asked  you." 

"I  was  pretty  sure  you  would  not  ask  me." 

"Thank  you,"  she  said. 

Brent  walked  with  her  as  far  as  the  factory,  and  turned 
homewards  along  the  Rue  Romaine.  She  had  given  him 
a  soft  look  of  the  eyes,  and  a  little  smile,  and  Brent  was 
happy. 

"She's  great,"  he  kept  saying  to  himself;  "by  God, 
I'm  glad  she  trusts  me  1" 


XX 

THE  day  davmed  very  red,  with  the  whole  horizon 
flushed  like  the  inside  of  a  shell.  The  sky  overhead  was 
as  grey  as  a  pearl;  there  was  no  wind  moving  and  the 
air  lay  soft  and  still. 

Brent  stood  on  the  doorstep  and  scented  a  change  in 
the  weather.  Rain  was  coming,  and  there  might  be  wind 
with  it,  and  he  looked  up  at  the  new  rafters  overhead  and 
^was  glad  that  he  had  fixed  none  of  the  iron  sheeting.  A 
gale  could  blow  through  the  timber-work  like  a  north- 
caster  through  the  snoring  rigging  of  a  ship  that  has 
struck  her  sails,  and  do  no  damage,  but  Brent  took  the 
hint  that  that  red  sky  gave  him.  He  would  have  to  block 
up  those  doorways  and  windows  before  sheeting  the  roof, 
or  some  malicious  devil  of  a  March  wind  might  come 
crowding  in,  heave  up  the  whole  structure  and  deposit 
it  in  the  backyard. 

He  had  lit  the  stove  and  he  had  coffee,  a  boiled  egg, 
and  real  bread  and  butter  for  breakfast.  His  pipe  tasted 
good  after  that  meal  when  he  went  up  aloft  to  complete 
the  fixing  of  the  rafters  on  the  half  of  the  house  over  the 
kitchen.  The  sky  looked  like  a  great  flat  sheet  of  grey 
rubber,  with  a  dirty  patch  of  darker  clouds  sticking  to  it 
here  and  there. 

"Yes,  you  are  going  to  rain  all  right,  damn  you,"  said 
Brent;  "pity  you  couldn't  have  put  it  off  for  three 
days." 

Paul  had  finished  the  fixing  of  the  rafters  and  had  been 

nailing  on  the  battens  that  were  to  take  the  galvanized 

iron  when  Louis  Blanc  cycled  into  Beaucourt.     He  came 

by  the  road  past  the  chateau,  and  from  the  high  ground 

136 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  137 

there  he  could  not  help  seeing  the  fresh  white  timber- 
work  of  the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire's  roof  showing  up  against 
the  lead-coloured  sky.  Bibi  dismounted  and  stood  hold- 
ing the  machine  by  the  handle-bars.  Paul  Brent  was 
visible  as  a  blue  and  white  figure  moving  against  the  white 
timber,  and  Bibi  could  hear  the  faint  tap-tap  of  his  ham- 
mer. 

The  "proprietaire"  of  the  Hotel  de  Paris  had  the  men- 
tality of  the  superficially  civilized  man  who  has  retained 
the  worst  blood  of  the  savage.  Louis  Blanc  was  a  Parisian, 
a  Parisian  of  the  cabaret  type  who  happened  to  have  been 
born  in  the  provinces.  He  had  a  long  head,  immense  appe- 
tites, and  an  exaggeration  of  the  Latin  temperament  that 
the  word  "flamboyant"  describes  so  well.  A  crowd  made 
him  brave,  especially  a  crowd  of  women,  and  one  woman 
would  do  the  trick  if  she  happened  to  be  pretty.  Bibi 
swaggered;  but  there  was  a  streak  of  cowardice  in  the 
man  when  you  cut  the  hair  of  his  vanity.  He  was  just 
the  precocious,  unlicked,  boastful,  dirty-minded  boy  of  six- 
teen who  had  never  been  socialized,  and  who  remained  a 
boy  at  the  age  of  forty. 

But  Bibi  had  a  head.  He  was  ingenious.  He  had 
avoided  hard  work,  and  he  had  prospered.  "Always  get 
somebody  else  to  shift  your  muck  for  you,"  was  one  of 
his  sayings. 

He  had  been  very  successful  with  women,  though  he 
had  had  his  head  bitten  off  on  occasions.  He  did  not 
understand  that  some  women  are  fastidious.  Bibi  was 
not  fastidious. 

Beaucourt  was  in  ruins,  but  the  proprietor  of  the 
Hotel  de  Paris  had  glimpsed  the  possibilities  of  a  ruined 
village.  For  the  plain  person  the  problem  of  Beaucourt 
was  shelter,  work,  food;  the  peasant,  like  Father  Adam, 
would  have  to  live  on  his  own  sweat,  reclaiming  those 
fields  and  gardens,  gulping  his  potage,  and  swallowing  his 
own  potatoes  and  haricots.  That  was  not  Louis  Blanc's 
idea  of  life.  He  despised  the  peasant.  He  was  modern, 
no  agriculturist,  but  a  manipulator  of  other  men's  ao- 


138          THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

tivities.  He  meant  to  create  an  artificial  value  in  Beau- 
court.  He  had  money,  and  a  man  who  was  ready  to 
back  him  with  more  money,  a  rich  Parisian  bourgeois 
whom  he  had  met  in  the  army  who  had  been  piqued  by 
Bibi's  idea.  Beaucourt  was  to  be  an  "exhibition  village," 
a  centre  for  the  sentimental  fools  who  would  visit  the  bat- 
tlefields, and  might  think  it  quaint  and  charming  to  stay 
in  a  village  that  was  rising  like  the  dead  from  its  ruins. 

A  week  ago  Bibi  and  his  man  of  money  had  visited  the 
Tourist  Agencies  in  Paris.  Bibi  had  declaimed. 

"In  three  months  there  will  be  an  hotel  in  Beaucourt. 
Some  experience,  hey! — for  Americans  and  English  to 
stay  in  a  devastated  village !  Table  d'hote  inside,  and  peo- 
ple putting  up  rabbit  hutches,  or  camping  in  the  church 
or  the  cellars !  The  tourists  will  be  able  to  see  it  all  from 
my  windows,  and  they  will  have  their  comforts  too,  good 
beds  and  full  bellies.  People  like  to  be  comfortable, 
messieurs,  even  after  strolling  down  a  devastated  street. 
Wine — yes — plenty  of  wine.  And  relics — cartloads  of 
relics.  You  can  visit  the  graves,  drive  to  Albert,  Peronne, 
Villers  Bretonneux,  Chaulnes,  Roye,  Moreuil.  Bus 
services  to  St.  Quentin  and  the  Hindenburg  Line  I  Do 
you  not  see  it  all,  messieurs?" 

One  of  the  principal  Tourist  Agencies  saw  it  very 
vividly.  Louis  Blanc  had  an  idea.  They  were  ready  to 
put  him  on  their  list  and  to  advertise  Beaucourt :  "Spend 
three  days  in  a  devastated  village.  Comfort  among  the 
ruins.  Unique  provincial  hotel  just  rebuilt  after  being 
demolished  by  shell-fire."  They  rose  to  Bibi's  idea,  but 
they  were  a  little  sceptical  about  his  scheme  for  rebuild- 
ing the  Hotel  de  Paris. 

"Thunder,  but  I  am  getting  the  stuff,"  said  Bibi,  "and 
I  am  getting  the  men." 

Which  was  an  exaggeration,  for  neither  building  ma- 
terial nor  labour  was  to  be  had  at  a  wave  of  the  hand. 
Bibi  was  agitating  his  case  with  the  Prefet  and  the  Mayor 
of  the  Commune ;  he  was  trying  to  buy  timber,  tiles,  army 
stores,  army  huts,  anything  and  everything. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  139 

And  there  he  stood  on  the  chateau  hill  and  saw  that 
damned  fellow  cl  Manon  Latour's  putting  up  a  roof  before 
he — Bibi — had  bought  a  foot  of  timber! 

"The  devil  scorch  his  blue  trousers,  but  where  did  he 
get  that  wood  ?" 

Louis  Blanc  walked  his  bicycle  down  the  chateau  hill, 
and  left  it  leaning  against  the  wall  by  the  doorway  of  the 
Hotel  de  Paris.  He  went  in  and  had  another  critical  look 
at  this  place  of  his,  crunching  over  the  broken  bricks, 
examining  the  walls,  the  foundations.  The  precarious 
state  of  the  great  central  chimney-stack  was  as  obvious  to 
him  as  it  had  been  to  Paul ;  the  raw  and  ragged  concavity 
at  the  base  of  it  looked  bigger  than  ever,  so  much  so  that 
Bibi's  eyes  narrowed  and  little  ugly  wrinkles  showed  about 
his  mouth  and  nostrils.  He  was  a  suspicious  beast.  A  man 
who  is  ready  to  play  dirty  tricks  on  others  is  always  im- 
agining them  being  played  upon  himself.  Bibi  climbed 
down  into  the  hole  and  examined  the  brickwork.  There 
were  no  pick  marks  upon  it,  no  signs  of  freshly  broken 
Surface,  but  Bibi  was  not  satisfied. 

He  went  and  stood  in  the  Place  de  1'Eglise  and  sur- 
veyed the  stage  upon  which  he  was  to  mount  this  financial 
tableau  of  his.  He  looked  at  the  church  with  its  broken 
spire  and  worm-eaten  walls.  Yes,  the  church  was  just  as 
it  should  be ;  the  scenic  effect  of  it  was  excellent ;  sensible 
people  would  leave  the  church  just  as  it  stood,  a  sensa- 
tional and  picturesque  relic.  Here  was  one  of  the  outrages 
of  the  great  war  slap  up  against  his  windows ;  the  tourists 
could  stare  at  the  church  while  they  sat  at  dinner  in  the 
salle-a-manger.  Bibi  suspected  that  no  funds  would  be 
available  for  the  restoration  of  churches.  That  was  ex- 
cellent. Who  wanted  churches,  unless  they  were  of  suffi- 
cient interest  to  be  written  up  in  guide-books  ?  The  shell- 
scarred  lime  trees,  ranged  round  the  Place  like  the  pillars 
of  a  piazza,  had  a  decorative  and  realistic  effect,  and  Bibi 
decided  that  the  lime  trees  must  not  be  touched.  He 
turned  his  attention  to  the  Hospice.  The  Hospice  was  a 
very  interesting  ruin,  and  Bibi  thought  of  trying  to  buy 


140  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

the  building,  visualizing  it  as  an  admirable  annexe  in 
the  event  of  the  scheme  proving  a  success. 

The  tap-tap  of  Brent's  hammer  echoed  faintly  through 
the  ruins.  The  sound  was  insistent,  challenging,  busily 
competitive.  It  annoyed  Louis  Blanc,  kept  up  a  noise  like 
the  yapping  of  a  dog,  and  disturbed  his  material  visions. 

"Confound  that  fellow!" 

He  called  Brent  a  foul  name,  and  then  walked  into  the 
Rue  de  Picardie.  Bibi  was  jealous  of  Manon,  and  jealous 
of  the  enterprise  she  had  shown  in  gathering  up  the 
threads  of  life  in  broken  Beaucourt.  A  woman  had  got 
ahead  of  him,  and  Bibi's  vanity  felt  the  insult;  women 
were  created  to  be  spectators  and  to  supply  the  applause. 
Louis  Blanc  wanted  Manon,  and  he  wanted  her  house. 
She  was  so  plump  and  pretty  and  provocative,  and  she 
would  have  made  such  an  excellent  little  manageress,  for 
even  tourists  like  a  pretty  French  madame  busy  about  a 
house.  But  Manon  had  declared  war  upon  Bibi ;  he  had 
his  grudge  against  her,  and  since  she  was  only  a  woman, 
Bibi  transferred  the  grudge  to  Brent. 

Reaching  the  end  of  the  Rue  de  Picardie,  Louis  Blanc 
had  a  view  of  the  work  that  Paul  had  completed,  and  it 
was  the  work  of  a  craftsman,  no  bodging  job  perpetrated 
in  a  back  garden  by  an  enthusiastic  amateur.  Bibi  stood 
in  the  street  and  gazed,  and  the  longer  he  looked,  the  more 
fiercely  he  disliked  Paul.  Brent  was  on  the  roof,  nailing 
down  battens  at  great  speed,  a  couple  of  nails  in  his  mouth, 
and  his  back  to  Louis  Blanc.  It  was  evident  to  Bibi  that 
Manon  had  made  a  catch,  and  that  the  fellow  up  there  on 
the  roof  was  worth  many  smiles. 

He  shouted  at  Brent: 

"Good  morning,  monsieur." 

And  a  moment  later: 

"Where  the  devil  did  you  get  that  wood  ?" 

Brent  turned  sharply,  and  sitting  on  one  of  the  lower 
battens,  looked  down  at  Bibi.  He  saw  him  as  a  tall  man, 
feet  planted  well  apart,  stomach  thrown  forward,  his  fists 
bulging  out  of  his  trouser  pockets,  a  man  who  looked  all 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE  141 

angles,  lean  shoulders  jutting  out,  jaw  cocked,  cap  over  one 
eye,  elbows  truculent.  Bibi  reminded  Brent  of  a  big  and 
blackguardly  variation  of  "Captain  Kettle." 

He  removed  the  nails  from  his  mouth,  and  wished  Bibi 
good  morning.  The  first  drops  of  rain  were  beginning  to 
fall. 

Louis  Blanc  repeated  the  question  that  Brent  had  failed 
to  answer: 

"Where  the  devil  did  you  get  that  wood  ?" 

Brent  smiled  down  at  him. 

"Found  it,"  was  all  he  said,  and  turning  round,  re- 
sumed his  hammering. 

Bibi  looked  hard  at  the  middle  of  Paul's  back.  It 
would  have  been  a  great  pleasure  to  him  to  have  climbed 
up  and  thrown  that  fellow  off  the  roof,  but  there  were 
things  that  Bibi  wanted  to  find  out.  The  rain  drops  fel] 
on  his  face,  and  suggested  shelter.  Bibi  mounted  the  path 
and  entered  the  doorway  of  the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire.  He 
poked  his  head  into  the  room  on  the  right  of  the  passage 
and  saw  stacked  in  the  farther  room  all  that  timber  and 
galvanized  iron  that  Paul  and  Manon  had  salved  from 
the  huts. 

It  was  pure  chance,  but  Brent's  hammer  took  it  into 
its  head  to  slide  off  one  of  the  rafters  and  land  on  the  stone 
floor  of  the  passage  within  two  feet  of  where  Louis  Blanc 
was  standing.  Brent  looked  down  and  saw  Bibi,  and  Bibi 
was  looking  up  at  him. 

"What  do  you  mean  by  that  ?" 

"It  was  an  accident,"  said  Brent. 

"Nicely  arranged." 

"Well,  you  have  no  business  there,  anyway,  monsieur." 

Bibi  stooped,  picked  up  the  hammer,  and  sent  it  whirl- 
ing into  the  ruins  across  the  road. 

"Voila!" 

He  stamped  into  the  other  rooms  and  looked  at  every- 
thing at  his  leisure,  while  Paul  came  down  the  ladder  to 
find  his  hammer.  He  knew  the  sort  of  man  that  Bibi 
was,  and  he  had  no  intention  of  letting  himself  be  tricked 


142  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

into  a  rough  and  tumble  with  him.  Such  men  are  best 
held  at  arm's  length  by  a  show  of  good  temper. 

Brent  had  the  luck  to  find  his  hammer  almost  at  once, 
and  he  was  up  the  ladder  again  and  hammering  hard  be- 
fore Louis  Blanc  had  satisfied  his  curiosity.  Bibi  looked 
up  at  him,  puzzled. 

"Oh,  there  you  are!" 

"I  shan't  drop  it  again,  monsieur.  There  is  no  need 
for  a  tin  helmet." 

He  saw  Bibi's  teeth. 

"A  nice  little  hoard  you  have  here.    Did  you  buy  it  ?" 

"We  bought  it  by  working  for  it,  monsieur." 

"You  stole  it,"  said  Bibi. 

Brent  paused,  smiling. 

"Look  here,  monsieur,  you  tempt  me  to  drop  the  ham- 
mer on  you." 

"Try  it,  my  boy,  try  it." 

Paul  let  fall  a  subtle  hint  instead  of  the  hammer.  He 
wanted  to  be  left  alone. 

"Why  don't  you  go  and  look  for  some  yourself,  mon- 
sieur. The  good  God  helps  those " 

"Oh,  go  to  hell !"  said  Bibi. 

He  slouched  out  of  the  house,  turning  up  the  collar  of 
his  coat  because  of  the  rain,  and  Brent  saw  him  walk  down 
the  Rue  de  Rosieres.  It  appeared  that  Louis  Blanc  did 
not  know  of  those  huts,  which  was  amusing  and  rather 
suggestive;  Bibi  had  despised  Beaucourt,  and  had  not 
bothered  to  discover  what  Beaucourt  could  give  him. 
When  a  man  has  big  ideas,  he  does  not  trouble  to  grub 
among  rubbish  heaps. 

Brent  descended,  looped  the  ground  sheet  over  his 
shoulders,  and  went  back  to  his  work.  Louis  Blanc  had 
disappeared,  but  presently  he  came  swinging  back  along 
the  Rue  de  Rosieres,  and  Brent  had  a  feeling  that  he 
had  seen  those  huts. 

Bibi  went  past  the  cafe  with  a  cocked  chin  and  a  gleam- 
ing eye. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  143 

"Yon  had  better  not  take  any  more  of  that,"  he  shouted 
at  Brent;  "it  belongs  to  the  State." 

Paul  nodded  at  him. 

"All  right.  It's  no  use  to  you,  I  suppose?  Good 
morning." 

Bibi  called  him  a  certain  foul  thing,  and  stalked  on. 
He  had  made  up  his  mind  to  hire  a  wagon  and  horses  and 
salve  some  of  that  stuff  for  himself. 

But  he  was  feeling  very  evil  towards  Brent,  and  when 
Bibi  hated  a  man  he  piled  every  imaginable  infamy  upon 
the  enemy's  shoulders. 

"That  fellow  would  play  me  a  dirty  trick — if  he  dared, 
but  I  frightened  him  a  bit  about  the  hammer.  Wonder 
what  a  woman  can  see  in  a  tow-headed  sheep  like  that  ?" 

It  was  raining  hard  and  beginning  to  blow  when  Bibi 
got  on  his  bicycle  and  rode  for  Ste.  Claire. 

Early  in  the  afternoon  the  rain  came  with  such  a 
pelt,  driven  by  a  rising  wind,  that  Paul  had  to  leave  work 
on  the  roof.  He  began  rigging  up  a  shelter  in  the  big  front 
room  on  the  other  side  of  the  passage — a  shelter  that  would 
enable  him  to  push  on  with  his  doors  and  window-frames 
and  defy  the  weather.  He  had  stacked  a  reserve  supply 
of  dry  firewood  in  the  cellar,  and  when  dusk  fell  and  shut 
out  the  wet  and  melancholy  blur  of  the  Beaucourt  ruins, 
Brent  was  not  sorry  to  retreat  to  the  cellar,  light  the  stove 
and  feel  snug  and  dry.  He  lit  the  candle,  put  the  kettle 
on  the  stove,  and  spent  the  time  cutting  the  mortices  for 
the  window-frames,  using  a  couple  of  boxes  as  a  bench. 

By  nine  o'clock  the  wind  had  worked  to  a  gale,  and  its 
bluster  became  so  menacing  that  Brent  climbed  the  cellar 
steps  and  stood  in  the  passage  under  the  shelter  of  the  wall. 
The  wind  was  snoring  through  the  timber-work  overhead, 
and  now  and  again  a  gust  would  smite  the  house  a  full 
smack  with  the  open  hand,  but  the  walls  of  the  cafe  took 
the  blow  without  flinching.  Brent  thanked  his  luck  that 
he  had  not  been  caught  with  the  roof  half  covered,  for 
the  gale  would  have  made  a  mess  of  the  whole  structure. 


144  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

As  he  stood  there  in  the  darkness,  he  became  aware 
of  Beaucourt  as  a  place  of  weird  noises.  The  broken  walls 
and  hollow  spaces  made  so  many  Pan's  pipes  for  the  wind 
to  play  upon.  There  was  the  noise,  too,  of  things  falling. 
Blocks  of  brickwork  and  strips  of  wall  that  had  braved  it 
out  in  quieter  times  subsided  under  the  push  of  this 
furious  north-easter.  Remnants  of  roof  slithered  down 
with  a  clattering  of  tiles.  Plaster  that  had  clung  to  the 
stud-work  crumbled  to  join  the  rubbish  below.  A  rusty 
piece  of  corrugated  iron  went  clanking  and  clashing  up 
the  Rue  de  Picardie,  till  a  gust  tossed  it  into  a  doorway* 
and  left  it  at  rest. 

Suddenly,  like  a  big  gun  loosing  off  in  the  thick  of  all 
the  tumult  of  the  wind's  attack,  some  mass  of  masonry 
or  brickwork  came  down  with  a  crash.  Brent  felt  a  dis- 
tinct vibration  of  the  earth,  a  thrill  of  the  foundations 
under  his  feet. 

"Hallo,  there  goes  Bibi's  chimney!" 

He  was  right. 


XXI 

MADAME  CASTENER  had  lit  the  lamp  when  someone 
knocked  at  the  door  of  her  cottage.  The  wind  was  roar- 
ing in  the  poplars  and  blowing  the  rain  against  the  win- 
dows, and  Marie  Castener  opened  the  door  no  more  than 
an  inch,  for  lamp  glasses  were  terribly  dear. 

"Who  is  there?" 

A  man's  voice  came  out  of  the  darkness,  a  brisk  but 
quiet  voice. 

"Good  evening,  madame,  I  am  sorry  to  trouble  you 
on  such  a  night,  but  they  tell  me  that  Madame  Latour  is 
here." 

Manon  was  sitting  at  the  table  with  a  sheet  of  red  linen 
that  was  to  be  the  cover  of  a  duvet  hanging  over  her  knees. 
The  lamp  was  turned  low  and  the  corners  of  the  room  were 
in  comparative  darkness.  She  saw  a  little  man  wearing 
a  black-caped  overcoat  and  a  soft  black  hat  step  quickly 
into  the  room  while  Madame  Castener  closed  the  door 
behind  him. 

The  visitor  bowed  to  Manon,  pulled  off  his  hat,  and, 
coming  into  the  circle  of  light,  began  to  unbutton  his 
overcoat.  He  was  a  compact,  square-shouldered  little 
man,  short  in  the  neck  and  legs,  with  a  shrewd,  grey,  close- 
cropped  head,  very  bright  eyes  and  an  air  of  humorous 
benignity.  He  smiled  at  Manon  as  she  put  the  red  linen 
aside  on  the  table,  rose,  and  held  out  her  hands  for  his 
coat. 

"Monsieur  Durand!" 

"I  have  surprised  you." 

She  hung  the  wet  coat  over  the  back  of  a  chair,  turned 
up  the  lamp,  and  looked  at  Monsieur  Anatole  Durand  with 
eyes  that  told  him  nothing.  Monsieur  Durand  had  owned 
145 


146  THE  HOUSE  OF  AD  VENTURE 

the  chateau  at  Beaucourt.  He  was  neither  an  aristo  nor 
a  parvenu,  but  a  solid  little  man  whose  father  and  grand- 
father had  been  solid  men  before  him,  millowners  at  Lille, 
men  who  had  made  money.  Anatole  had  bought  the 
chateau  at  Beaucourt  about  ten  years  before  the  war.  A 
man  of  ideas  and  of  energy,  he  had  tried  to  teach  Beau- 
court  certain  things  that  it  did  not  know,  and  Beaucourt — 
like  most  villages — had  had  no  desire  to  be  taught  any- 
thing. Monsieur  Durand  had  not  been  popular.  He  had 
lived  up  there  in  the  chateau,  and  he  had  not  belonged 
to  the  chateau.  A  peasant  may  abuse  an  aristo,  but,  even 
in  abusing  him,  he  recognizes  the  aristo's  indigenous 
right  to  be  there.  Durand  was  an  importation,  a  city  man, 
a  big  little  fellow  who  appeared  to  think  he  had  right 
to  interfere  with  the  other  little  fellows  in  Beaucourt. 
The  soul  of  the  peasant  had  shown  its  surliness.  Durand 
was  just  a  bumptious  manufacturer  who  had  come  to 
amuse  himself  in  the  country.  Beaucourt  had  held  its 
nostrils  at  the  smell  of  his  autocar.  What  did  Beaucourt 
want  with  an  autocar?  What  did  Beaucourt  want  with 
electric  light,  and  a  dynamo  driven  by  water  power  ?  The 
man  was  a  fussy,  new-fangled  fool. 

"Be  seated,  monsieur." 

Anatole  Durand  sat  down,  knees  well  apart,  his  hands 
resting  on  them.  Marie  Castener  had  drawn  up  a  chair 
on  the  other  side  of  the  table ;  she  began  to  darn  stockings 
with  an  air  of  phlegmatic  detachment  that  left  these  other 
two  free  to  talk. 

"So  you  are  like  the  rest  of  them,  Manon,"  said  Durand, 
looking  her  straight  in  the  face. 

"How  is  that,  monsieur?" 

She  glanced  at  him  and  went  on  with  her  work. 

"Of  course — I  was  unpopular.  That  busybody,  Durand ! 
Always  wanting  something  new!" 

"You  know  Beaucourt  as  well  as  I  do,  monsieur,"  said 
Manon. 

Anatole  Durand  sat  squarely  on  his  chair.  He  was  a 
square  man  all  over,  square  in  the  boots,  the  head,  the 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE  147 

jaw,  rather  like  a  little  copy  of  Thiers,  that  irrepressible, 
compact  bit  of  energy. 

"Well,  they  can  hate  me  as  much  as  they  please,  but 
I  always  was  a  man  who  must  push  a  stone  out  of  the  way 
or  cut  down  a  rotten  tree.  I'm  an  old  fellow,  Manon,  but 
my  work  is  over  there.  I  have  another  ten  years  left." 

There  was  a  little  quiver  of  emotion  in  his  voice. 

"I  have  no  children,  you  know,  and  plenty  of  money. 
I  am  not  one  of  the  ruined  ones.  You  can't  take  your 
money  away  with  you  when  you  die.  Did  ever  an  old 
fellow  have  such  an  opportunity  ?" 

Manon  raised  her  head,  and  her  eyes  seemed  to  see 
•omething. 

"Why  do  you  come  to  me,  monsieur?" 

"You  have  gone  back  to  Beaucourt." 

"In  a  sense,  yes." 

"You  are  rebuilding — you  are  one  of  those  with 
courage." 

"I  have  hope,  monsieur,  and  I  have  had  good  luck." 

Anatole  Durand's  eyes  glistened. 

"Life  is  like  this,  madame;  there  are  those  who  work 
and  create ;  there  are  those  who  wait  and  grumble.  Some 
people  sit  still  and  say,  'What  a  tragedy!  What  can  we 
do  ?  When  is  the  Government  going  to  help  us  ?'  Those 
people  will  not  rebuild  Beaucourt;  they  will  not  bring 
back  the  smile  and  the  good  sweat  to  all  that  poor  desert." 

"You  think  as  I  think,  Monsieur  Durand." 

He  gave  an  audacious  and  triumphant  little  wave  of 
the  hands. 

"Do  not  call  me  an  egotist,  my  dear,  if  I  wish  to  con- 
secrate the  rest  of  my  life  to  the  healing  of  these  wounds. 
What  better  work  for  a  Frenchman!  And  that  is  one 
of  the  reasons  why  I  have  come  to  you,  because  you  have 
the  courage,  because  I  felt  that  you  must  think  as  I 
have  thought." 

Manon  put  down  her  work,  and  looked  at  Anatole 
Durand  with  eyes  of  immense  seriousness. 

"Monsieur,  listen  a  moment.     When  I  first  went  to 


148  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

Beaucourt  I  thought  only  of  my  own  bit  of  property, 
myself,  but  when  I  had  seen  Beaucourt  and  felt  the  pity 
of  it,  I  began  to  think  of  my  neighbours.  Yet  I  say  to 
myself,  to  help  others  you  must  first  be  strong  yourself. 
So  I  did  not  hesitate  to  look  round  and  get  what  I  could, 
timber  and  iron  from  some  army  huts,  tins  of  beef,  tools, 
bits  of  furniture — which  I  shall  return." 

Durand  smiled  at  her. 

"It  is  the  spirit  of  France;  do  not  apologize  for  it, 
madame,  for  it  is  the  spirit  that  will  rebuild  Beaucourt. 
But  now,  I  ask  you,  what  will  have  to  be  done  for  the 
others  ?" 

"Food,"  said  Manon  promptly. 

"Yes." 

"Tools,  material,  wood  to  build  with." 

Old  Durand  clapped  his  hands. 

"Exactly.  Well,  it  will  be  my  business  to  try  and 
arrange  all  that.  The  Americans  and  English  will  sell 
us  their  camps  and  their  stores,  and  I  shall  be  one  of 
the  first  to  buy.  We  shall  have  to  open  a  canteen  at  Beau- 
court.  Now,  madame,  I  shall  drive  over  in  my  autocar  to- 
morrow. Will  you  go  with  me?" 

"With  pleasure,  monsieur,"  said  Manon ;  "and  if  I  may 
take  a  little  bundle " 

"Anything  but  a  piano  or  a  cupboard,"  said  Anatole, 
with  a  laugh. 

The  storm  blew  itself  out  during  the  night,  leaving  wet 
roads  and  a  blue  sky  and  a  smell  of  spring  in  the  air. 
Durand  and  his  car,  an  old-fashioned  four-seater  De  Dion, 
called  for  Manon  at  nine,  with  Anatole  at  the  wheel 
and  a  luncheon  basket  on  the  back  seat.  Manon's  bun- 
dle was  no  terrible  affair,  stores  for  Paul  tied  up  in  a 
blanket. 

But  someone  was  before  them  on  the  Beaucourt  road, 
Louis  Blanc  on  his  bicycle,  a  Louis  Blanc  who  was  not  in 
the  best  of  tempers.  He  had  visited  nearly  every  farm  in 
Ste.  Claire,  offering  good  money  for  the  hire  of  a  wagon 
and  a  couple  of  horses,  but  no  one  had  been  able  to  oblige 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  149 

him.  He  came  into  Beaucourt  by  the  Bonniere  road. 
In  the  Place  de  PEglise  he  dismounted  and  stood  staring. 
Something  was  missing  from  the  broken  outlines  of  the 
ruins  of  the  Hotel  de  Paris;  the  great  central  chimney 
had  fallen. 

Bibi  dashed  his  bicycle  down  upon  the  cobbles.  He  was 
in  a  rage — the  dramatic,  white-faced  rage  of  the  French 
"rough,"  a  rage  that  must  gesticulate,  stamp  up  and  down, 
let  itself  loose  on  something.  He  stormed  in  and  looked  at 
the  ruin,  and  a  pretty  mess  the  chimney  had  made  of  it. 
Falling  on  the  gable  end  next  the  Rue  des  Echelles,  it  had 
sent  it  crashing,  and  this  mass  of  brickwork,  striking  the 
tottering  wall  of  the  Hospice  across  the  way,  had  brought 
down  the  whole  facade  of  the  Hospice  into  the  road.  The 
mouth  of  the  Rue  des  Echelles  was  full  of  broken  bricks 
and  stones. 

Bibi  looked  at  it  all,  and  swore.  The  centre-piece  of 
his  house  had  gone;  there  were  only  three  walls  instead 
of  four — nothing  left  that  could  carry  a  roof.  The  end 
fronting  on  the  Rue  des  Echelles  would  have  to  be  re- 
built before  anything  could  be  done  in  the  way  of  putting 
up  timber. 

Bibi  stamped  about,  kicking  the  bricks,  and  napping 
his  arms  like  some  furious  bird.  He  was  not  a  man  who 
could  satisfy  himself  by  cursing  the  elements  or  black- 
guarding a  purely  impersonal  wind.  He  wanted  a  tan- 
gible, human  enemy,  a  personal  quarrel,  a  feud  that  could 
be  prosecuted  with  boot  and  fist.  He  wanted  to  take  some- 
body by  the  throat,  smash  his  fists  against  real  flesh,  smell 
real  blood.  Bibi  was  a  savage.  His  rage  was  the  anthro- 
pomorphic rage  of  a  savage  that  spits  in  the  face  of  its 
idol-god  and  hammers  it  with  a  club. 

That  chimney  had  not  fallen  itself.  Therefore  someone 
had  helped  it  to  fall.  Therefore  someone  had  played  him 
a  dirty  trick.  These  deductions  following  each  other  easily 
through  Bibi's  mind,  proved  that  someone  could  be  none 
other  than  that  fellow  of  Manon  Latour's. 

"Voila!" 


150  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

The  motive  was  obvious,  so  obvious  that  Bibi  had  not 
to  search  for  an  enemy.  He  had  found  his  quarrel  and  he 
fastened  on  it  like  a  snarling  dog. 

He  walked  up  the  Rue  de  Picardie  with  those  cold  eyes 
of  his  full  of  a  hard  glare.  His  fists  were  stuffed  into  his 
trouser  pockets ;  he  swung  his  shoulders  as  he  walked,  and 
jerked  his  head  from  side  to  side.  The  fighting  mood 
flared  in  him. 

Paul  was  at  work  on  the  roof.  He  had  carried  up 
about  twenty  sheets  of  corrugated  iron,  and  his  hammer 
began  to  ring  on  them  as  Louis  Blanc  came  up  the  street. 
To  Bibi  the  noise  was  like  the  clashing  of  sword  and 
buckler,  a  barbaric  sound  echoing  out  of  his  savage 
Gaulish  past. 

"Hallo,  there!" 

Brent  turned,  and  leaning  against  the  roof,  looked  down 
at  the  man  in  the  street.  Bibi's  figure  was  foreshortened. 
His  long  chin  seemed  to  stick  out ;  he  looked  all  shoulders 
and  feet. 

"Good  morning,"  said  Paul,  "it  has  turned  fine  after 
the  storm." 

Bibi  grinned  and  looked  at  the  ladder  that  rested 
against  the  front  of  the  house. 

"So  you  thought  that  dirty  trick  of  yours  rather  clever." 

"What  trick,  Monsieur  Blanc  ?" 

Bibi  raised  a  big  hand,  its  fingers  hooked,  as  though  he 
were  reaching  for  the  man  up  above.  He  looked  ugly, 
devilish  ugly. 

"Come  down,"  he  said. 

Brent  sat  and  considered  him. 

"What's  the  matter  ?    What  are  you  talking  about  ?" 

"Come  down,"  said  Bibi  again;  "you  know  what  I 
mean." 

Brent's  eyes  went  hard.  He  knew  what  had  happened 
to  Louis  Blanc's  house,  having  strolled  up  there  soon  after 
dawn,  and  he  sensed  some  connexion  between  the  fallen 
chimney  and  that  ugly  figure  in  the  road.  The  fellow 
wanted  a  row;  he  had  found  an  excuse  for  it;  but  Brent 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE  151 

had  made  up  his  mind  not  to  give  Bibi  his  chance.  A  ro"v* 
might  prove  most  damnably  awkward,  and  Paul  meant  to 
smile  the  man  off. 

"Look  here,"  he  said.  "I'm  busy.  What's  all  this 
about?" 

"Come  down,"  barked  Bibi,  with  the  persistence  of  a 
furious  dog. 

Brent  laughed,  turned,  and  pretended  to  go  on  with 
his  work,  but  he  kept  an  eye  on  the  top  of  the  ladder  that 
projected  above  the  wall. 

"You  pig  of  a  coward,"  said  the  voice. 

Brent  began  hammering. 

"You  knocked  away  the  foundations  of  my  chimney." 

Brent  went  on  hammering. 

Then  he  saw  the  top  of  the  ladder  give  a  jerk,  and  he 
vr  as  round  in  a  flash.  Bibi  had  one  foot  on  the  third  rung, 
and  the  two  men  stared  at  each  other. 

"Look  here,"  said  Brent,  still  smiling,  "you  keep  off 
that  ladder.  I  have  had  nothing  to  do  with  that  chimney 
of  yours." 

"Liar!"  shouted  the  Frenchman. 

Brent  gave  a  French  shrug. 

"It's  the  truth;  take  it  or  leave  it  But  get  off  that 
ladder." 

Bibi  began  to  climb  up,  and  Brent  bent  down,  gripped 
the  top  rung,  and  held  the  ladder  out  from  the  wall. 

"Look  here,  if  you  try  to  come  up,  I'll  pitch  you 
over." 

Bibi  did  try,  and  Brent  kept  his  promise.  Man  and 
ladder  went  over  into  the  road,  Bibi  lying  like  a  big  beetle 
with  the  thing  on  top  of  him.  He  slipped  from  under  it, 
got  up,  and  began  to  behave  like  a  madman.  He  picked 
up  the  ladder,  dashed  it  against  the  raised  path  so  that  it 
broke  in  the  middle,  and  then  went  on  to  kick  it  to  pieces 
with  his  heavy  boots.  He  was  like  a  wild  animal  that  had 
lost  all  control  and  all  sense  of  pain,  and  Brent  sat  and 
watched  him  with  something  of  the  feeling  of  a  man  who 
is  safe  in  the  branches  of  a  tree.  He  understood  now 


152  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE 

why  Manon  had  looked  so  serious  when  she  had  spoken  of 
Louis  Blanc.  The  fellow  could  behave  like  a  beast,  and 
he  had  the  strength  of  a  beast.  Brent  had  ceased  to  smile. 

"I  shall  want  a  long  spoon,"  he  reflected,  "a  devilish 
long  spoon.  Life  in  Beaucourt  is  going  to  be  hot  stuff." 

Into  the  middle  of  this  display  of  animal  energy  came 
Anatole  Durand's  car,  poking  its  red  nose  round  the  corner 
of  the  Hue  Eomaine,  and  stopping  by  the  well,  for  Bibi  still 
occupied  the  road.  He  had  not  finished  kicking  the  ladder 
to  pieces,  and  his  heavy  boots  made  such  a  noise  that 
he  had  not  heard  the  car. 

There  was  a  very  droll  look  on  old  Durand's  face. 
Manon  had  glanced  at  Paul  on  the  roof,  and  Paul  had 
smiled  at  her,  but  Manon  did  not  smile.  Here  was  this 
evil  spirit  loose  in  Beaucourt,  this  map  who  had  always 
behaved  like  a  spoilt  child  when  baulked  ot  some  desire. 

"So  that  fellow  hasn't  been  killed,"  said  Monsieuv 
Durand.  "What  a  pity!  Let  us  ring  for  the  concierge." 

He  sat  there  and  blew  blasts  on  his  motor  horn  as 
though  Louis  Blanc  were  the  walls  of  Jericho. 

Bibi  left  the  remains  of  the  ladder  and  walked  across 
to  the  car.  The  imperiousness  of  old  Durand's  horn 
annoyed  him,  nor  was  it  any  pleasure  to  him  to  look  into 
the  quizzical  and  bright  eyes  of  the  manufacturer  from 
Lille.  Anatole  was  not  afraid  of  anything  or  anybody, 
and  he  had  always  spoken  of  Bibi  as  a  dog  that  wanted 
thrashing.  The  presence  of  Manon  modified  the  situation, 
and  brought  the  sex  swagger  back  into  Bibi's  attitude. 

"You  seem  to  have  no  respect  for  your  boots,  mon- 
sieur," said  old  Durand. 

Louis  Blanc  stood  in  front  of  the  nose  of  the  car,  hands 
in  pockets,  feet  well  apart,  his  body  swung  back  from  the 
loins. 

"If  a  fellow  plays  you  a  dirty  trick,  monsieur,  you  go 
round  to  give  him  a  thrashing,  hey.  But  that  fellow  up 
there  was  afraid  to  come  down,  so  I  have  smashed  his 
ladder  for  him.  You  see !" 

"Tiens !"  said  old  Durand,  "but  what  is  it  all  about  ?" 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  153 

"If  you  ask  that  fellow  up  there,"  and  Bibi  shook  a  fist 
at  Paul,  "whether  he  did  not  knock  down  the  chimney 
and  wall  of  my  hotel,  he  will  tell  you  a  lie." 

The  voice  of  Manon  interposed  itself. 

"Monsieur  Blanc  imagines  that  other  people  behave  as 
he  would  behave.  That  is  the  whole  trouble." 

She  looked  up  at  Paul. 

"Have  you  touched  Monsieur  Blanc's  house  ?" 

"Is  it  likely?  The  storm  blew  the  thing  down.  I 
heard  it  fall  about  nine  o'clock  last  night." 

Bibi  shrugged  his  shoulders.  The  violence  was  dying 
out  of  him;  it  had  exhausted  itself  for  the  moment;  and 
he  had  a  certain  astuteness ;  the  grapes  were  sour  on  this 
particular  morning. 

"You  are  a  man  of  the  world,  monsieur,"  he  said  to 
Anatole  Durand ;  "you  know  that  things  do  not  happen  of 
themselves,  especially  when  certain  people  wish  them  to 
happen.  But  the  truth  remains;  that  fellow  is  a  coward 
and  a  liar,  and  it  was  to  madame's  interest." 

Anatole  gave  a  little  bleat  on  the  horn. 

"I  think  you  have  got  a  bee  in  your  head,  Monsieur 
Blanc.  We  French  do  not  play  such  tricks  on  each  other." 

"So  it  is  three  to  one,"  said  Bibi ;  "and  against  a  man 
who  was  three  times  wounded.  Voila!  Into  the  ditch 
with  you  all !  I'm  off." 

He  went  swinging  up  the  Rue  de  Picardie,  and  Durand 
and  Manon  sat  and  looked  at  each  other. 

"What  is  the  matter  with  that  fellow  ?" 

"What  was  always  the  matter  with  Bibi,  monsieur! 
He  has  an  idea  that  Beaucourt  is  an  opportunity,  that  he 
is  going  to  show  off  and  make  money.  He  always  had  the 
biggest  voice  in  the  place,  you  know." 

"Yes,  a  fog-horn  of  a  man,"  said  Durand,  "a  big  drum. 
But  what  about  our  St.  Simon  up  there  ?" 

They  climbed  out  of  the  car,  and  joined  in  council  with 
Paul.  But  old  Durand's  attention  was  divided.  He  was 
in  Beaucourt,  the  place  of  his  Frenchman's  dreams,  in  the 
thick  of  these  dear  ruins  that  were  to  bloom  again  under 


154  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

his  hand.  He  looked  at  Manon's  house,  and  was  delighted, 
and  his  delight  almost  forgot  the  worker  and  the  work. 
Here  was  his  symbol,  his  example,  his  banner  of  hope. 
He  wanted  to  run  through  all  the  village  on  those  sturdy 
little  legs  of  his,  and  dream  hard-headed  dreams  of  re- 
construction. 

Manon  understood. 

"Go  and  look  at  Beaucourt,  monsieur.  I  will  see  to 
my  partner." 

Anatole  dashed  off,  opening  a  big  note-book.  He  had 
carried  a  big  note-book  all  his  life ;  it  was  his  Bible. 

"Expect  me  in  half  an  hour." 

Manon  stood  in  the  road  and  spoke  to  Paul. 

"What  happened  ?"  she  asked. 

"He  came  round  here  like  a  mad  bull,  and  when  he 
tried  to  climb  the  ladder  I  pitched  him  over,  ladder  and 
all.  It's  a  nuisance;  I  shall  have  to  make  a  new  ladder." 

Manon  laughed.  She  liked  Paul's  shrewdness,  his  smile 
of  restraint. 

"And  now  I  must  get  you  down." 

She  happened  to  know  that  old  Durand  carried  a  length 
of  stout  rope  in  the  locker  under  the  back  seat  of  the  car. 
He  had  told  her  it  was  there.  "If  we  break  down,  well, 
I  have  a  tow-rope."  He  liked  thoroughness,  to  be  pre- 
pared for  all  eventualities. 

The  rope  served  its  purpose.  Manon  threw  up  the  coil, 
and  at  the  third  attempt  Brent  caught  it.  He  fastened 
the  end  to  one  of  the  rafters  and  slid  down. 

"That's  that,"  he  said  tersely. 

Manon  looked  at  him  with  eyes  that  were  brighter  than 
the  eyes  of  a  man. 


xxn 

AKATOLE  DUEAND  was  away  for  two  hours,  and  when 
he  returned  to  the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire  he  found  that  Brent 
had  extemporized  a  ladder  out  of  some  lengths  of  timber 
and  was  at  work  again  on  the  roof  of  the  house.  The  gale 
of  the  preceding  night  had  been  a  warning  to  Manon'a 
partner,  and  he  was  in  a  hurry  to  get  the  whole  roof  cov- 
ered in  before  the  wind  rose  again.  Manon  was  helping  at 
the  foot  of  the  ladder,  and  making  further  use  of  Mon- 
sieur Durand's  rope.  She  had  knotted  a  big  loop  at  one 
end  of  it,  a  loop  which  would  grip  a  couple  of  sheets  of 
iron,  so  that  Paul  could  draw  them  up. 

Old  Durand  sat  down  on  the  running-board  of  his  car 
and  watched.  He  had  seen  his  chateau,  and  he  had  seen 
Beaucourt,  and  perhaps  he  had  been  a  little  discouraged, 
though  Manon  had  warned  him  against  what  he  called 
"la  maladie  des  mines,"  but  as  he  watched  the  cheerful 
activities  of  these  two,  Brent  hauling  up  the  sheets  and 
nailing  them  down  with  the  sjteed  and  precision  of  a 
human  machine,  the  adventure  of  it  thrilled  him. 

"Hallo,  that's  life,"  he  said,  "the  spirit  of  youth  that 
strives  and  creates.  Youth  is  not  daunted.  Look  at 
that  fellow's  strong  brown  arms,  and  the  little  Manon 
with  her  sleeves  rolled  up.  Mon  Dieu !  but  it  is  splendid ! 
<Ja  ira,  c.a  ira!" 

He  threw  his  big  note-book  on  to  the  front  seat  of  the- 
car,  took  off  his  coat,  and  was  ready  for  the  dance.  He 
could  not  resist  the  music  of  those  two  happy  figures,  and 
the  fine  clang  of  the  hammer. 

"Hallo,  you  two,  'here  is  a  recruit.  Set  me  to  work, 
my  dear." 

155 


156  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

Manon  exclaimed  as  only  a  Frenchwoman  can  exclaim. 

"Monsieur  has  caught  the  fever !  We  shall  all  call  you 
Papa  Durand,  Pere  de  Beaucourt." 

Anatole  winked  at  Paul. 

"Now  let  us  see  what  she  will  give  me  to  do !  She  haa 
made  use  of  my  rope " 

Manon  stood  considering,  hands  on  hips. 

"I  have  it.     Monsieur  was  always  a  great  gardener." 

"That's  it.  Give  me  a  spade.  Turning  up  the  good 
|ru'l  for  the  first  crops !" 

"It  will  be  the  first  soil  turned  in  Beaucourt.  The 
honour  is  yours,  monsieur." 

"Before  God,  it  is  an  honour,"  said  old  Durand  with 
•udden  solemnity. 

So  he  set  to  work  in  Manon's  garden,  clearing  the 
rubbish,  and  starting  his  trench  with  all  the  careful  de-r 
liberation  of  the  professional  gardener.  He  whistled,  he 
perspired,  he  took  off  his  waistcoat.  Life  was  good,  the 
simple  life  that  grows  out  of  the  soil. 

Manon  went  in  to  cook  the  meal.  She  had  brought 
eggs  and  butter,  and  she  made  an  omelette.  There  was 
a  white  cloth  on  the  table,  glasses,  a  bottle  of  wine,  half 
a  loaf  of  bread,  some  cheese.  When  all  was  ready,  she 
went  forth  with  a  saucepan  and  a  spoon  and  hammered 
her  gong. 

"Messieurs,  le  diner  est  servi." 

Old  Durand  came  in  with  a  shining  forehead  and  eyes 
that  laughed. 

"What,  the  hotel  is  open  already  1" 

He  shook  hands  with  Paul. 

"You  are  the  very  man  we  want,  my  friend.  I  con- 
gratulate madame  on  her  partner.  I  hear  you  have  lived 
in  England?" 

"Seven  years,"  said  Brent,  and  swallowed  the  lie,  not 
liking  it.  Durand  was  a  man  to  whom  it  was  no  pleasure 
to  tell  a  lie;  there  was  something  of  the  frank,  brave 
child  in  him. 

They  sat  down  to  the  meal,  and  it  was  Anatole  who 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  157 

talked,  and  he  talked  like  his  note-book.  He  expressed 
himself  in  energetic,  jerky  phrases,  like  a  man  pushing  a 
big  stone  up  a  hill. 

"Work,  that's  it.  The  world  has  got  to  get  back  to 
work.  There  is  nothing  so  good  as  work.  Look  at  my 
appetite!  I  saw  it  all  mapped  out  while  I  was  digging. 
We  must  get  at  the  soil,  grow  our  food,  grow  more  food 
till  we  have  food  to  sell.  Then  we  can  buy  clothes,  and 
pots  and  pans,  and  curtains — the  things  that  the  towns 
have  to  sell.  Quite  simple,  is  it  not  ?  But  to  begin  with 
we  shall  have  no  food  and.  little  shelter.  That  is  where 
Papa  Durand  will  come  in.  I  shall  buy  food ;  we  will  open 
a  public  kitchen  and  a  canteen.  I  shall  buy  stores,  timber, 
felt,  iron  sheets,  stoves.  Perhaps  you,  Monsieur  Paul,  will 
be  my  director  of  works — who  knows  ?  Perhaps  madame 
will  manage  the  food.  We  must  get  the  strong  men  and 
the  women  back,  shelter  them,  feed  them,  give  them  tools. 
Not  charity,  no,  but  a  new  chance.  It  is  not  wise  to  mak« 
things  too  easy;  if  people  do  not  work,  they  shall  not 
come  to  our  canteen.  The  old  women  and  the  children 
had  better  stay  where  they  are  until  Beaucourt  has  its  feet 
on  the  rock.  Yes,  I  shall  live  here,  and  work  here,  when 
I  am  not  scouring  the  country  for  stores,  or  shouting  at 
officials.  The  officials  always  have  wool  in  their  ears.  They 
say,  'Your  plan  shall  be  considered,'  and  then  put  it  away 
in  a  drawer.  But  you,  my  friends,  and  the  like  of  you, 
will  be  the  saviours  of  devastated  France.  I  drink  your 
health,  madame,  and  wish  you  'bonne  chance.'  " 

When  the  meal  was  over,  and  Monsieur  Durand  had  lit 
a  cigar,  Manon  took  him  to  see  the  huts  in  the  field  off  the 
Rue  de  Rosieres.  Two  of  these  huts  were  in  perfect  con- 
dition and  had  not  been  touched  by  Brent;  and  there 
were  two  others  that  could  be  put  in  repair.  Each  hut 
would  hold  about  twenty  people. 

Anatole  was  delighted. 

"Here  we  are!  Shelter  for  forty  men  and  the  same 
number  of  women — barracks  for  the  workers  till  we  can 
find  something  better.  Then  there  are  the  cellars  in 


158  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

Beaucourt.  I  shall  use  the  cellars  of  the  chateau  as  my 
depot  for  food." 

He  scribbled  in  his  note-book. 

"I  shall  be  in  debt  to  Beaucourt,"  said  Manon,  "but 
I  shall  pay  the  debt." 

"How  so,  my  dear  ?" 

"We  have  taken  more  than  enough  material  to  make 
another  hut" 

"The  example  will  pay  for  it.  I  suppose  that  fellow — 
Louis  Blanc — knows  of  these  buildings  ?" 

"Yes." 

"Confound  him !"  said  Durand. 

She  left  him  wandering  among  the  ruined  cottages, 
and  returned  to  the  cafe  and  to  Paul.  Manon's  ideas  had 
been  enlarged  by  the  enthusiasms  of  old  Durand,  for  he 
was  a  man  who  had  remained  young,  whose  brain  was  vital 
and  alert.  Age  was  horrible  to  Manon,  even  though  she 
pitied  it,  age  with  its  stupidly  staring  old  face,  its  eternal 
questions,  its  eternal  condemnation  of  anything  new. 
She  found  herself  picturing  the  Beaucourt  of  the  future. 
What  would  it  be  like  ? — a  little  world  of  old  men  and  old 
women,  grumblers,  backbiters,  grudging  folk  who  could 
never  forgive  youth  for  being  young  ?  The  figures  of  Paul, 
Bibi  and  old  Durand  seemed  to  stand  in  the  foreground  of 
the  new  Beaucourt.  She  was  more  than  a  little  afraid  of 
Paul.  How  would  Beaucourt  accept  him  ?  Had  the  war 
made  people  broader-minded,  more  generous,  more  ready 
to  say  "This  man  has  done  good  things;  let  us  judge  him 
by  his  works"  ? 

Paul  had  shifted  his  ladder  to  the  other  side  of  the 
house,  for  he  had  completed  the  roofing  of  the  half  next  the 
street.  Already  this  house  of  hers  was  ceasing  to  look  an 
empty  shell ;  it  had  a  solidity,  an  overspreading  shadow. 
Something  thrilled  in  her.  She  looked  up  at  the  man, 
her  man  with  his  brown  arms  and  sturdy  back,  and  a 
strange  new  tenderness  awoke  in  her  heart.  She  would 
stand  by  him ;  she  would  place  herself  resolutely  between 
him  and  the  past.  What  did  the  past  matter  ?  It  was  the 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  159 

future,  the  brave  looking  forward,  and  the  light  in  the 
eyes,  the  hands  strong  for  the  labour  that  was  to  be. 
These  were  the  things  that  mattered. 

"Paul." 

She  called  him,  and  her  voice  had  a  new  softness,  a 
note  that  was  for  his  ears  alone.  He  turned  and  looked 
down  at  her,  this  dark-haired  little  woman  in  her  black 
blouse  and  black  and  white  check  skirt.  The  woman  in 
her  and  the  indefinable  perfume  of  her  womanhood  seemed 
to  rise  to  him  like  the  scent  of  the  spring. 

"Come  down,"  she  said;  "I  wish  to  talk." 

Brent  smiled,  hesitating. 

"I  want  this  finished  before  the  wind  gets  up." 

"Yes,  I  know,"  she  answered ;  "you  work  like  a  devil." 

He  laughed  and  came  down  the  ladder,  and  when  he 
was  standing  at  her  side,  he  felt  that  they  had  passed  some 
invisible  landmark,  and  that  Manon  knew  it  and  was  hold- 
ing out  a  hand. 

"Where  is  Monsieur  Anatole  ?" 

"Dreaming,"  she  said,  "dreaming,  but  I  think  his 
dreams  will  come  true." 

"A  great  old  man — that." 

"Because  he  is  not  old.  He  looks  forward,  not  back. 
If  he  can  only  give  his  eyes  to  Beaucourt,  it  will  be  good 
for  Beaucourt — and  for  us." 

She  turned  through  the  gateway  into  the  garden  where 
old  Durand's  first  ridge  of  freshly  turned  brown  soil 
showed  at  the  end  of  a  green  carpet  of  weeds.  The  path 
under  the  pollarded  limes  and  between  them  and  the  stone 
wall  was  broad  enough  for  two.  It  had  many  memories 
for  Manon,  many  associations — this  old  garden ;  it  was  an 
intimate  place,  and  Brent  was  no  longer  a  stranger. 

"I  am  worried  about  Bibi,"  she  said. 

She  looked  up  at  Paul  with  a  full,  frank  glance  of  the 
eyes,  a  glance  that  seemed  to  open  the  whole  of  her  world 
to  him. 

"I  can  look  after  myself.  I  don't  want  to  quarrel  with 
the  fellow." 


160  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

"You  are  thinking  that  he  could  make  trouble  ?" 

"Yes,  that's  the  danger." 

They  walked  to  the  end  of  the  path  in  silence,  a  silence 
that  was  like  a  lane  that  led  towards  a  clearer  view  of 
the  future. 

"How  great  is  the  danger,  Paul  ?" 

She  spoke  very  quietly,  and  in  turning,  looked  calmly 
up  into  his  face. 

"Do  you  not  think  that  I  ought  to  know  ?" 

Brent  stood  a  moment,  his  eyes  set  in  a  stare  of 
thought.  He  was  wondering  what  had  prompted  her  to  ask 
him  that  question,  nor  had  he  any  quarrel  with  her  right 
to  ask  it,  and  in  a  measure,  he  was  glad. 

"You  have  every  right  to  know — I  will  tell  you." 

"Wait " 

She  touched  his  sleeve. 

"Do  not  misunderstand  me.  If  I  wish  to  defend  my 
friend,  I  must  know  how  the  attack  might  come,  I  must 
have  my  eyes  open.  And  then — of  course,  it  all  depends 
on  whether  you  are  happy  here." 

Brent  smiled. 

"If  you  say  that  I  may  stay,  I  stay.  Such  a  second 
chance  does  not  often  come  to  a  man.  And  now — I'll  tell 
you." 

"Everything,"  she  said  with  a  quick  look  at  him. 

"Everything." 

He  found  the  making  of  that  confession  far  easier  than 
he  had  thought.  On  his  first  day  in  Beaucourt  he  had 
given  her  mere  hints,  sketched  a  vague  outline,  but  now 
he  drew  in  every  detail,  withholding  nothing,  painting  his 
life's  picture  with  a  simplicity  and  a  sincerity  begotten  of 
the  war.  He  had  lived  two  years  in  an  English  prison, 
having  been  convicted  of  fraud — but  the  fraud  had  been 
of  another  man's  making.  Brent  had  trusted  people ;  he 
was  good-natured;  he  had  left  all  the  legal  details  of  the 
adventure  to  the  other  man. 

"Of  course  I  was  to  blame,"  he  said;  "I  was  just  as 
responsible  as  he  was ;  I  ought  not  to  have  gone  about  in 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  161 

blinkers.  I  abetted  his  swindling  because  I  did  not  take 
the  trouble  to  find  it  out.  My  wife  knew  it  all  the  time; 
she  was  one  of  those  women  who  are  mad  to  make  a  show. 
I  never  forgave  her  that.  When  I  came  out  of  prison  the 
war  had  started,  and  I  had  my  chance.  But  after  the  war 
— there  was  nothing.  Do  you  wonder  that  I  had  a  horror 
of  going  back  ?" 

"What  a  tragedy!"  she  said;  "just  your  good  nature." 

He  glanced  at  Manon. 

"One  ought  not  to  be  too  good-natured.  But  for  that 
disgrace — and  the  truth  of  it — I'm  free." 

"Quite  free?" 

Her  dark  eyes  looked  into  his  with  a  candour  that  was 
almost  fierce.  And  Brent  understood. 

"Yes,  free.  My  wife  died  during  the  first  year  of  the 
war.  I'm  quit  of  the  whole  miserable  business;  only, 
over  there,  I  should  always  be  labelled  an  ex-convict.  I 
didn't  mind  so  much  during  the  war;  you  lost  yourself 
in  the  bigness  of  it  and  in  the  heart  of  your  pal.  But 
when  it  was  over " 

"The  past  came  back." 

And  then  she  smiled,  and  opening  the  old  blue  gate  in 
the  garden  wall,  looked  out  over  Beaucourt. 

"There's  the  old  world — everybody's  past.  We  are 
beginning  all  over  again,  old  Durand — you — -I — even 
Bibi.  But  Bibi  will  be  just  the  same  as  ever,  and  after 
all  there  is  so  little  for  Bibi  to  find  out.  You  are  just  an 
Englishman  who  chose  to  stay  in  France." 

"I'm  a  deserter,"  he  said.  "I  suppose  they  would 
call  me  that.  Beckett — the  man  buried  over  there  would 
not  have  grudged  me  the  chance ;  he  was  the  sort  of  fellow 
who  never  minded  risking  his  head.  I  have  seen  him  go  to 
a  farm  that  was  being  shelled  and  bring  away  the  dog 
that  was  chained  up  in  the  yard." 

And  then  he  added,  "What  do  you  want  me  to  do  ?" 

"Nothing.  You  are  just  Paul  Ranee,  a  Breton  who  had 
lived  in  England,  and  who  has  not  gone  back  to  England." 

"Yes,"  said  Brent;  "but  there  are  occasions  in  life 


162  THE  HO¥SE  OF  ADVENTURE 

when  a  man  has  to  produce  papers,  documents,  and  I  have 
nothing  but  the  pay-book  and  disc  that  belonged  to  my 
friend.  I  would  rather  like  you  to  take  charge  of  them." 

"You  can  give  them  to  me;  I  will  lock  them  up  in  the 
box  I  have  at  Marie  Castener's.  And  now  that  I  know 
everything,  it  seems  nothing." 

Brent  was  looking  through  the  gateway  at  the  ruins  of 
the  village. 

"You  are  very  generous,"  he  said.  "We  will  see  what 
Beaucourt  makes  of  me.  If  it  accepts  me  as  a  good 
sort  of  fellow,  it  may  ask  no  questions.  It  is  about  time 
J  got  back  to  work  on  the  roof." 

They  walked  back  to  the  house,  and  before  he  climbed 
the  ladder,  Brent  went  down  into  the  cellar  and  returned 
with  the  battered  brown  Army  Book  and  the  identity  disc. 
He  gave  them  to  Manon. 

"There  is  my  pledge." 

"It  shall  always  be  honoured^  she  answered  him, 
slipping  them  into  her  blouse. 


XXI33 

HALF-AN-HOUR  before  dusk  Anatole  Durand  started  up 
the  engine  of  his  car,  and  glanced  round  for  Manon, 
who  had  been  putting  on  her  cloak.  Durand  saw  in  this 
delay  a  loitering  of  lovers,  nor  had  he  any  quarrel  with 
a  romance  that  seemed  part  of  the  soul  of  the  new  Beau- 
court.  "If  I  am  loved  by  the  young,"  was  one  of  hia 
sayings,  "the  old  can  hate  me  as  much  as  they  please." 
His  protest  was  a  mild  bleat  on  the  horn,  and  a  jab  at  the 
accelerator  that  set  the  engine  roaring  for  a  couple  of 
seconds.  He  had  a  side  glimpse,  as  he  turned  the  car,  of 
Manon  and  Paul  coming  out  of  the  doorway  of  the  Cafe 
de  la  Victoire,  Paul's  blue  trousers  very  close  to  Manon's 
black  and  white  check  skirt.  There  was  an  indescribable 
nearness  about  their  figures,  and  yet  just  a  little  space  be- 
tween them,  that  magnetic  space  that  separates  the  hearts 
of  lovers  who  have  not  confessed. 

Manon  was  saying  something  to  Paul.  She  looked 
across  at  Durand. 

"I  am  coming,  monsieur." 

"I  am  thinking  of  those  shell-holes  in  the  road  near 
!Les  Ormes." 

Manon  climbed  into  the  back  seat,  and  Brent  leant 
over  and  wrapped  a  blanket  round  her.  She  had  a  little 
canvas  bag  in  her  hand,  a  bag  that  contained  something 
heavy,  and  she  dropped  the  bag  into  one  of  the  pocl&ta  of 
Paul's  coat. 

"I  managed  to  borrow  it,"  she  said,,  "after  much 
trouble." 

Old  Durand  refrained  from  looking  over  his  shouldet. 

"Are  you  ready  ?" 

"Yes,  monsieur." 


164  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

Manon  gave  Paul  a  nod  and  a  brightening  of  the  eyes. 

"Be  careful,"  she  said,  "or  I  shall  be  worried." 

The  red  car  squeezed  its  way  round  the  well  and 
disappeared  into  the  Rue  Romaine,  leaving  Paul  Brent 
looking  at  the  empty  sunset  and  feeling  the  canvas  bag  that 
Manon  had  dropped  into  his  pocket.  He  drew  it  out,  un- 
fastened the  string  at  the  mouth  of  the  bag,  and  saw  pro- 
truding the  lacquered  butt  of  a  little  revolver,  a  mere 
cheap  toy  of  a  pistol  such  as  they  made  by  the  thousand  in 
Belgium  before  the  war.  There  were  half  a  dozen  cart- 
ridges at  the  bottom  of  the  canvas  bag,  and  Brent  emptied 
them  into  the  palm  of  his  hand. 

The  forethought  was  Manon's  and  therefore  he  had  no 
quarrel  with  it,  discovering  in  that  little  weapon  associa- 
tions of  tenderness  and  pathos.  The  war  had  made  him 
a  fighting  man,  yet  this  pistol  did  not  seem  to  be  the 
tool  of  a  fighting  man,  but  rather  a  thing  to  be  carried  in  a 
pocket  like  some  hooligan's  knife.  Brent  smiled,  but  the 
memories  of  Manon  were  behind  the  smile.  He  had  seen 
Bibi  in  action  and  the  beastliness  of  it  had  sobered  him, 
suggesting  a  wild  dog  among  the  ruins,  a  dog  that  might 
leap  out  and  snap  at  your  throat.  The  whole  business  was 
primitive  and  preposterous,  rather  unconvincing  to  an 
Englishman  who  had  been  trained  to  a  disciplined  and 
orderly  way  of  killing  Germans.  The  idea  of  being  set 
upon  and  bludgeoned  in  a  ruined  French  village  sug- 
gested the  Police  News. 

The  dusk  approached,  and  this  ghost  village  had  an 
inhuman  silence.  Old  Durand's  car  seemed  to  have  trailed 
the  last  thread  of  life  out  of  it,  and  a  sharp  shadow  fell 
across  Brent's  face.  His  chin  went  up ;  he  stood  listening. 
Somewhere  in  the  Rue  de  Picardie  a  loose  tile  clattered 
down,  and  the  fall  of  it  was  like  the  sound  of  an  avalanche. 

Brent  slipped  six  cartridges  into  the  drum  of  the  re- 
volver, and  put  it  back  in  his  pocket.  He  stood  a  moment 
looking  up  at  the  new  roof  that  covered  the  western  half 
of  the  house,  and  if  his  pride  swelled  itself  out  a  little,  the 
feeling  was  justified.  Under  the  level  light  of  the  sunset 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  165 

the  old  house  had  warmed  to  a  soft,  ruddy  brown,  and  those 
blind  eyes  needed  only  window-frames  and  shutters  painted 
a  battered  blue  to  make  it  melt  again  into  its  green  nest 
among  the  orchards.  In  all  his  life  Brent  had  never  done 
a  piece  of  work  better  or  more  quickly,  and  the  man  in 
him  exulted. 

He  entered  the  house,  and  hesitated  in  the  kitchen  with 
a  half-puzzled  look  upon  his  face.  The  sunlight  had 
reached  out  over  Beaucourt  like  a  great  hand,  a  hand 
that  was  suddenly  withdrawn,  and  through  the  oblong  of 
the  window  he  saw  the  outlines  of  the  ghost-houses,  ribs 
Showing,  eye-sockets  grey  and  empty.  The  room  itself 
was  filling  with  the  dusk ;  objects  in  it  were  growing  indis- 
tinct; the  chair  on  which  Manon  had  sat  looked  like  a 
ghost  of  a  chair.  The  silence  was  extraordinary.  Brent 
had  known  the  same  silence  over  No-Man's  Land  on  quiet 
nights,  but  there  had  been  men  near — other  men.  Here 
there  was  desolation,  that  and  nothing  else. 

His  own  face  had  a  touch  of  grimness.  He  was  listening 
all  the  time,  without  perhaps  realizing  that  the  drums  of 
his  ears  were  tense;  and  he  was  conscious  of  a  sudden 
feeling  of  acute  loneliness,  an  uncomfortable  loneliness, 
chilly,  fidgety,  unpleasant.  He  pulled  out  his  pipe,  filled 
the  bowl,  lit  the  tobacco,  and  found  himself  biting  hard 
at  the  stem  and  ceasing  to  suck  at  it,  in  order  to  listen. 

"Wind  up!" 

He  smiled.  An  old  soldier  getting  the  wind  up  in 
Beaucourt !  Did  anyone  ever  meet  a  ghost  coming  down 
Tottenham  Court  Road  ?  He  sat  down  in  Manon's  chair, 
stared  at  the  blank  emptiness  of  the  window  space,  and 
thought  of  lighting  the  stove  and  going  to  bed.  Brent  had 
got  out  of  the  habit  of  locking  doors  and  fastening  win- 
dows, but  Beaucourt,  this  silent,  twilight  Beaucourt, 
brought  him  back  to  a  primitive  understanding  of  the 
habit.  He  was  a  civilized  man  again  who  still  takes  pre- 
cautions against  primordial  savagery.  He  was  the  hermit- 
crab  in  its  borrowed  shell,  but  this  particular  shell  had 
gaps  in  it.  And  somehow  in  the  chill  of  that  dusk  Brent 


166  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

knew  that  he  did  not  relish  sleeping  in  that  cellar,  where  a 
man  could  creep  down  the  steps  in  his  stockinged  feet 
and  stun  him  before  he  could  move. 

He  decided  that  he  was  not  going  to  sleep  in  the  cellar, 
and  he  went  below  and  carried  up  the  wire  bed  on  hia 
back.  Then  he  brought  half  a  dozen  sheets  of  galvanized 
iron  and  some  lengths  of  timber  into  the  kitchen  so  that 
he  could  barricade  the  window  and  the  door.  The  cunning 
of  the  old  soldier  suggested  an  additional  device,  some  sort 
of  harmless  booby-trap  to  guard  the  front  and  back  doors, 
a  few  old  tins  scattered  about,  a  loosely  slung  wire  that 
would  bring  a  saucepan  clattering  down  if  anybody  touched 
it.  The  virtues  of  a  good  house-dog,  and  of  stout  doora 
and  shutters,  needed  no  emphasizing. 

Brent  barricaded  the  door  and  window  of  the  kitchen 
and  went  to  bed.  Manon's  revolver  lay  ready  on  a  box; 
also  a  candle  and  a  box  of  matches.  Beaucourt  was  still, 
extraordinarily  still,  so  silent  that  it  kept  Paul  awake, 
listening  for  the  sound  of  anyone  moving  outside  the 
house. 

He  was  growing  accustomed  to  the  stillness,  and  be- 
ginning to  feel  drowsy  and  less  on  the  alert  when  some- 
thing brought  him  back  to  a  state  of  acute  attention.  He 
could  remember  having  been  scared  as  a  boy  by  the  sound 
made  by  a  snail  crawling  across  a  window-pane,  and  this 
sound  that  he  heard  was  just  as  peculiar  and  unexplain- 
able.  It  made  him  think  of  a  hand  rubbing  softly  across 
some  roughish  surface.  It  seemed  quite  near,  and  yet  he 
was  unable  to  localize  it  in  the  darkness.  Brent  lay  ab- 
solutely still,  knowing  that  the  confounded  wire  bed  would 
creak  and  complain  if  he  made  the  lightest  movement. 

The  sound  changed  abruptly,  became  sharper  and  more 
metallic.  It  suggested  finger-nails  picking  at  the  edge  of 
a  sheet  of  metal,  and  in  a  flash  Brent  seemed  to  visualize 
the  origin  and  the  meaning  of  the  sound.  A  man's  hand 
had  been  feeling  its  way  across  the  sheets  of  corrugated 
iron  that  closed  the  window  until  it  had  come  in  contact 
with  the  edge  of  one  of  the  sheets.  The  hand  had  been 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  167 

testing  the  solidity  of  the  improvised  shutter,  and  whether 
it  was  possible  to  slip  one  of  the  sheets  aside. 

The  sound  ceased,  and  Brent's  hand  went  out  for  the 
revolver.  He  fancied  that  he  could  hear  a  movement  along 
the  raised  path  towards  the  street  door,  and  he  waited  for 
the  clink  of  one  of  those  tins,  but  his  booby-traps  gave 
him  no  warning.  There  was  an  interval  of  silence,  quite  a 
long  interval,  and  Brent's  ears  were  beginning  to  play  him 
tricks.  He  was  lying  on  his  left  side,  his  face  turned  to- 
wards the  kitchen  doorway,  its  barricade  of  iron  sheets 
and  timber  a  black  patch  in  the  plastered  wall  opposite 
him,  when  he  saw  a  little  thread  of  light  outline  the  lower 
edge  of  the  barricade.  It  was  very  faint,  a  mere  greyness, 
diffused  from  some  light  that  was  burning  in  one  of  the 
rooms  on  the  other  side  of  the  passage. 

Brent  pushed  back  the  blankets,  drew  up  his  feet,  and 
lifting  his  legs  slowly  over  the  edge  of  the  bed,  sat  up. 
The  wire  netting  creaked,  but  the  sound  coincided  with  a 
very  distinct  and  crisp  rustling  in  one  of  those  other  rooms, 
a  rustling  that  suggested  the  brushing  up  of  shavings  in  a 
carpenter's  shop.  It  was  one  of  those  sounds  that  struck 
an  old  familiar  memory  on  Brent's  brain.  He  had  taken, 
the  precaution  of  carrying  the  ladder  into  the  kitchen,  and 
it  stood  slanting  against  the  partition  wall  just  below 
the  gap  in  the  uncompleted  roof.  Paul  felt  his  way  to  the 
ladder,  tested  its  steadiness  with  a  pressure  of  the  hands, 
and  mounted  it  slowly,  Manon's  revolver  in  his  left 
hand. 

A  sudden  broadening  glow  of  light  met  him  as  he 
reached  the  top  of  the  wall.  There  was  the  distinct  crackle 
of  burning  wood,  and  then  Brent  understood.  He  caught 
one  of  the  rafters,  pulled  himself  on  to  the  wall,  and  lying 
flat  along  it,  was  able  to  look  down  into  the  back  room  on 
the  other  side  of  the  passage. 

He  saw  a  man  down  there,  a  man  who  was  bending 
forward  and  feeding  chips  and  bits  of  wood  on  to  the  fire 
he  had  lit  on  the  floor.  He  had  piled  his  shavings  against 
.Brent's  stack  of  timber  salved  from  the  dismantled  huts, 


168  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

and  the  flames  were  beginning  to  lick  at  the  pile  of  floor 
boards.  Brent  set  his  teeth,  and  changed  his  pistol  from 
his  left  hand  to  his  right.  The  man  was  Louis  Blanc; 
Paul  knew  him  by  his  cap  and  clothes,  and  those  angular 
projecting  shoulders. 

Brent  might  have  saved  himself  much  future  suffering 
and  travail  if  he  had  obeyed  that  first  impulse  and  shot 
Bibi  as  he  bent  forward  over  the  fire.  He  did  not  do  it. 
It  was  one  of  those  deeds  that  became  impossible  directly 
the  instinctive  impulse  has  been  gripped  and  held.  Brent 
•fired  straight  at  the  fire,  and  tfte  bullet  sent  a  spurt  of 
burning  chips  over  the  feet  of  the  man  below. 

Bibi  gave  a  leap  like  a  cat,  all  four  limbs  spread. 
Paul  had  a  momentary  glimpse  of  his  face,  lips  drawn 
back  tight  over  the  teeth,  eyes  furious  and  surprised.  Then 
he  dodged  sideways  out  into  the  passage,  and  Paul  heard 
the  saucepan  clatter  against  the  stones  as  Bibi's  ankles 
struck  the  wire.  There  was  a  pause,  a  scuffle,  an  oath. 

Brent  used  Bibi's  favourite  expletive. 

"Voila !"  he  shouted.  "I  missed  you  on  purpose.  Next 
time  I  shan't  miss." 

"Go  to  the  devil,"  said  the  other  voice  from  somewhere 
in  the  street. 

Paul  scrambled  down  to  save  his  timber.  Manon  had 
brought  him  a  little  electric  torch,  and  after  dismantling 
the  barricade  across  the  kitchen  doorway,  he  stepped  into 
the  passage.  Bibi  might  still  be  hanging  about  outside 
the  house,  and  since  it  was  possible  that  Bibi  was  armed, 
Paul  went  to  the  street  doorway,  and  flashed  his  torch 
along  the  path  and  across  the  road.  Seeing  no  sign  of 
Louis  Blanc  he  made  a  dash  for  the  back  door,  and  using 
a  bit  of  board  scooped  the  mass  of  burning  shavings  away 
from  the  timber  pile.  The  floor  was  of  tiles,  and  Brent 
was  able  to  beat  out  the  scattered  fire. 

He  had  no  more  sleep  that  night,  but  sat  on  a  box  in 
the  corner  of  the  kitchen,  his  blankets  wrapped  round  him, 
^  torch  and  revolver  ready.  During  that  long  watch  he  did 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  169 

some  very  practical  thinking  on  the  subject  of  doors  and 
shutters,  and  the  values  of  a  good  watch-dog.  If  there  was 
to  be  a  battle  of  wits  among  the  ruins  of  Beaucourt  many 
of  the  advantages  would  rest  with  Bibi ;  he  could  attack 
when  he  pleased;  an  eternal  "standing  to"  to  repel  some 
chance  raid  was  not  a  pleasant  prospect. 

"I  might  put  the  police  on  him,"  Paul  thought,  and 
immediately  saw  himself  in  a  legal  tangle,  and  being 
handed  over  as  a  deserter  to  a  corporal's  guard. 

Before  the  first  greyness  of  the  dawn  he  lit  the  fire, 
made  himself  some  tea,  and  then  started  the  day's  work. 
It  took  him  less  than  an  hour  to  finish  sheeting  the  roof 
covering  the  right  half  of  the  house,  and  he  saw  the  sun 
come  up  through  the  beech  trees  of  the  Bois  du  Hoi  and 
flood  the  broken  walls  with  yellow  light.  There  was  noth- 
ing to  break  the  silence  save  the  sound  of  his  hammer,  and 
in  the  calm  of  the  dawn  Brent  found  it  difficult  to  believe 
that  Louis  Blanc  existed. 

He  knocked  off  for  breakfast,  and  then  took  a  stroll  up 
the  Rue  de  Picardie.  Not  twenty  yards  from  the  cafe  he 
came  upon  a  rather  amusing  and  significant  proof  of  the 
impetuosity  of  Louis  Blanc's  retreat,  a  pair  of  boots  stand- 
ing neatly,  even  demurely,  in  the  middle  of  the  street. 
Bibi  had  pulled  off  his  boots  here  before  making  his 
attack,  and  Brent  pictured  him  in  his  socks  pedalling 
that  bicycle  of  his  back  to  Ste.  Claire. 

Paul  was  inclined  to  be  elated  over  the  finding  of  those 
boots,  and  to  attach  too  triumphant  a  significance  to  this 
rather  ridiculous  detail.  Louis  Blanc  had  the  soul  of  a 
"sneak-thief,"  and  the  courage  of  a  bully.  Shot  at,  he 
evaporated,  and  Brent  was  tempted  to  believe  that  he 
had  finished  with  Bibi. 

But  he  kept  to  his  plan,  and  began  by  closing  the  back 
door  of  the  house  with  a  barricade  of  iron  sheets  and 
timber  backed  by  ammunition  boxes  filled  with  bricks. 
There  were  three  ground-floor  windows  in  the  unroofed 
half  of  the  house  and  Paul  covered  them  with  more  sheets, 


170  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

driving  the  nails  into  the  hard  old  mortar  of  the  walls. 
He  was  nailing  up  the  last  sheet  when  he  heard  the  sound 
of  a  car. 

Old  Durand  had  chosen  a  different  road  that  morning, 
and  had  come  by  way  of  the  Rue  de  Rosieres.  He  pulled 
up  outside  the  house,  and  Paul,  standing  there  hammer  in 
hand,  saw  Manon's  eyes  fixed  on  the  barricaded  windows. 

She  gave  a  look  of  interrogation,  frowning  slightly. 

"Just  to  keep  out  the  wind,"  Paul  told  her. 

She  did  not  believe  him,  and  while  Paul  was  talking  to 
Durand  she  went  in  and  discovered  the  blackened  tiles  in 
the  back  room,  the  charred  shavings,  and  the  scorched  pile 
of  floor  boards. 

Durand  drove  on  to  the  chateau.  He  wished  to  make 
a  survey  of  the  place  and  to  examine  the  cellars,  and  Paul 
found  Manon  standing  in  the  doorway,  a  very  serious 
Manon,  with  eyes  that  demanded  the  truth. 

"What  happened  last  night  ?" 

"What  do  you  mean  ?" 

Brent's  eyes  were  tired  and  red  about  the  lids,  the  eyes 
of  a  man  who  had  had  no  sleep. 

"Someone  tried  to  light  a  fire  in  there." 

He  nodded. 

"So  you  have  seen  it !  Yes,  it  was  that  pleasant  neigh- 
bour of  ours,  Bibi.  He  sneaked  in  when  it  was  dark,  but 
I  happened  to  be  awake." 

She  wanted  to  know  everything,  and  Brent  described 
all  that  had  happened,  and  how  he  had  frightened  Louis 
Blanc  with  the  revolver  she  had  left  him. 

"I  wish  you  had  killed  the  beast,"  she  said  with  a 
passion  that  surprised  Brent;  "no  one  would  have  been 
any  the  wiser." 

"I  couldn't  shoot  the  man  in  cold  blood." 

"Cold  blood!  You  have  too  nice  a  sense  of  honour. 
Bibi  would  have  burnt  you  alive,  or  suffocated  you  in  cold 
blood,  as  you  call  it." 

And  then  her  eyes  softened. 

"Yes,  it  is  like  you  to  be  generous;  but  this  madness 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  171 

of  Bibi's  puts  me  in  a  different  temper.  I  am  coming  to 
live  in  Beaucourt." 

"But  Manon!" 

"You  can  argue  for  ever  and  ever,  but  I  am  coming. 
I  have  a  sense  of  honour,  mon  ami.  And  as  for  worrying 
about  what  old  women  might  say  to  me,  nom  d'un  chien ! 
but  they  can  go  to  the  deviL  I  stand  by  my  man." 


XXIV 

AT  seven  o'clock  on  a  misty  March  morning  Etienne 
Castener  brought  his  horse  out  of  the  stable  and  harnessed 
him  to  the  big  blue  cart.  The  two  women  were  busy  in 
Manon's  cottage,  and  a  little  yellow  dog,  bought  by  Manon 
the  night  before,  and  tied  by  a  piece  of  string  to  a  leg  of 
the  table,  kept  running  round  and  round  until  he  had 
wound  himself  so  close  to  the  table  leg  that  any  further 
circumlocutions  did  not  seem  worth  while.  A  wooden 
packing-case,  two  yellow  trunks,  a  table,  an  arm-chair,  a 
cupboard,  the  frame  of  a  wooden  bed,  a  mattress,  a  hamper 
of  vegetables,  and  a  basket  of  food  had  been  placed  outside 
the  cottage  to  be  loaded  to  the  cart.  Manon  had  been 
able  to  save  a  little  furniture  before  the  Germans  had 
entered  Beaucourt,  and  it  had  been  stored  in  Marie  Cas- 
tener's  grenier. 

The  blue  cart  crunched  out  of  the  muddy  yard  into 
the  road,  and  drew  up  outside  the  cottage.  A  few  neigh- 
bours had  collected  to  watch  the  departure;  one  or  two 
of  them  brought  presents,  a  few  apples,  a  bag  of  potatoes, 
a  string  of  onions.  Manon  was  popular. 

Among  them  was  Mere  Vitry,  a  refugee,  whose  picture 
of  the  Sacre  Coeur  Manon  had  rescued  from  the  cottage 
in  the  Rue  Romaine.  There  were  quite  a  number  of 
refugees  in  the  neighbouring  villages ;  Anatole  Durand  had 
a  list  of  the  names,  and  he  had  visited  them  all  and  per- 
suaded them  to  remain  in  the  villages  for  another  week 
Within  ten  days  he  hoped  to  have  a  supply  of  food 
in  Beaucourt.  "Without  food,  my  friends,  we  can  do 
nothing." 

Etienne  began  to  load  the  cart,  his  mother  helping  him 
with  hands  and  tongue.  She  was  very  strong  and  she 
173 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  173 

would  not  allow  Manon  to  do  any  more  work.  "You  keep 
your  strength  for  the  other  end,  my  dear.  There  will  be 
plenty  to  do  in  Beaucourt."  So  Manon  stood  and  watched, 
holding  the  yellow  dog  by  the  string,  and  Mere  Vitry  stood 
beside  Manon  and  looked  at  her  as  though  she  were  a  new 
Jeanne  d'Arc.  Mere  Vitry  had  a  face  like  a  wrinkled 
brown  boot,  with  buttons  for  eyes.  Her  black  skirt  had 
a  great  plum-coloured  patch  where  her  bony  old  knees  had 
Worn  the  cloth  thin. 

"You  will  take  care  of  the  picture,  my  dear  ?" 

"Yes,  I  will  take  great  care  of  it,"  said  Manon. 

Mere  Vitry  explained  that  the  picture  had  belonged 
to  her  mother  in  the  days  when  her  father  had  come  back 
from  the  Russian  war,  and  that  it  had  hung  in  the  same 
place  and  on  the  same  nail. 

"My  father  drove  that  nail,  and  every  two  years  I 
used  to  put  a  new  piece  of  cord  on  the  picture.  And  you 
say  there  is  no  roof  left  in  the  house?" 

"Just  a  small  piece.  There  are  no  whole  roofi  in 
Beaucourt." 

"Enough  for  an  old  woman  to  sleep  under,  perhaps, 
I  shall  be  there  when  the  spring  comes." 

Etienne  had  loaded  the  cart,  and  had  so  arranged  the 
arm-chair  that  it  formed  a  seat  for  Manon.  He  was  going 
to  walk  beside  his  horse. 

"I  shall  walk,"  said  Manon. 

Marie  Castener  scolded  her. 

"Get  up  and  save  your  legs.  Etienne  can  ride  all  the 
way  home." 

Manon  laughed,  kissed  Marie,  climbed  up  into  her  seat 
and  took  the  dog  in  her  lap.  Marie  Castener  stood  by  the 
wheel ;  she  was  feeling  important  with  all  these  neighbours 
listening  while  she  helped  to  launch  Manon  on  this  great 
adventure. 

"Etienne's  boy  shall  come  over  twice  a  week  with  eggs, 
vegetables,  butter  and  bread.  He  can  ride  a  bicycle,  you 
know.  If  you  want  anything  write  it  down  on  paper,  for 
Pierre  forgets  everything,  save  the  time  for  his  meals." 


174:          THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

Manon  leant  over  towards  this  stolid,  ugly  woman  who 
had  the  heart  of  a  saint. 

"How  good  you  have  been  to  me." 

"Don't  be  sentimental,"  said  Marie  Castener;  "haven't 
I  enjoyed  it  ?" 

The  blue  cart  moved  off,  and  the  neighbours  made 
the  departure  quite  a  public  occasion,  waving  to  Manon 
and  shouting  "Bonne  chance."  It  was  an  emotional  mo- 
ment, a  dramatic  moment — Manon  sailing  out  into  the 
wilderness  with  all  her  belongings  loaded  on  the  cart,  to 
begin  the  new  life,  the  life  that  was  to  be  so  bitter  and 
so  heart-breaking  to  many. 

At  the  end  of  the  village,  just  before  the  road  turned 
up  the  hill  under  the  poplars,  stood  the  farm-house  where 
Louis  Blanc  had  been  lodging.  A  meadow  planted  with 
a  few  apple  trees  separated  the  house  from  the  road. 
Bibi,  an  unshaved  and  slovenly  Bibi,  was  leaning  over  the 
farmyard  gate  when  Manon  and  the  cart  went  by.  She 
did  not  see  him,  but  Louis  Blanc  watched  the  brown  horse 
and  the  blue  cart  go  slowly  up  the  hill. 

His  jaw  seemed  to  lengthen;  his  lower  lip  protruded; 
his  eyes  looked  mere  slits.  He  rubbed  his  chin  between 
finger  and  thumb,  and  spat  over  the  gate.  It  appeared 
that  Manon  had  a  way  of  getting  things  done;  she  had 
a  cart  at  her  service  when  he,  Bibi,  had  been  unable  to  hire 
a  cart,  and  she  had  a  man  to  work  for  her.  Now  she  was 
going  to  Beaucourt  with  all  her  goods  and  chattels  to 
take  up  life  in  the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire.  Bibi's  nostrils 
looked  pinched,  he  sneered. 

"A  nice  fix  she  would  be  in,"  he  thought,  "if  someone 
kicked  that  fellow  of  hers  out  of  Beaucourt." 

That  was  the  centre  point  of  Bibi's  vision.  The  bot- 
tom had  fallen  out  of  his  own  enterprise,  and  he  had 
been  listening  to  panegyrics  on  the  philanthropy  of 
Anatole  Durand:  "Ah,  if  all  wealthy  men  were  like 
that,  if  there  were  no  profiteers."  The  whole  business 
made  Bibi  savage.  Manon  and  her  man  were  flaunting 
their  success,  while  old  Durand  was  preparing  to  spoil 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  175 

the  place  as  a  fertile  field  for  speculation.  And  the  fools 
applauded  him ! 

"They  think  it  is  going  to  be  a  little  heaven,"  was  Bibi's 
reflection  as  he  sludged  back  through  the  dirty  yard  to 
drink  his  morning  coffee. 

At  Beaucourt  Paul  Brent  had  spent  a  very  peaceful 
night,  lying  safely  behind  a  good  door  and  barricaded 
windows.  He  was  up  at  dawn,  and  washing  with  confident 
publicity  in  the  open  street,  his  head  full  of  the  thoughts 
of  the  coming  of  Manon.  He  had  become  a  little  less 
self-conscious  in  his  attitude  towards  Manon,  less  ready  to 
consider  the  possible  prudery  of  a  repopulated  Beaucourt, 
less  afraid  of  the  activities  of  Louis  Blanc.  And  romance 
joined  him  in  the  misty  street,  and  walked  back  with  him 
over  the  grey  cobbles  and  into  the  house  of  Manon  Latour. 
Paul  re-introduced  sentiment  into  the  house.  It  is  said, 
perhaps  with  truth,  that  the  French  are  a  hard-headed 
and  unromantic  nation,  killers  of  birds,  teaching  even  the 
sex-bird  to  live  in  a  very  practical  and  ungilded  cage,  but 
Paul  Brent  opened  the  door  of  the  cage.  His  love  sang  in 
the  open,  welcoming  its  mate. 

He  played  at  being  housewife,  turning  everything  out 
of  the  cellar  where  Manon  was  to  sleep,  brushing  the  brick 
floor,  laying  out  the  new  blankets  she  had  bought  the  pre- 
vious day,  and  hanging  up  a  little  cracked  old  mirror  he 
had  found  in  one  of  the  houses.  The  cellar  had  all  the  best 
of  the  furniture,  a  couple  of  chairs,  an  improvised  wash- 
hand  stand,  a  cupboard,  a  neat  little  wooden  platform  be- 
side the  bed  for  the  reception  of  Manon's  feet  when  she 
emerged  in  the  morning.  There  was  a  jug  and  basin,  a  tin 
bath,  a  table  beside  the  bed  to  hold  her  candlestick. 

Having  sentimentalized  and  prepared  the  cellar,  Paul 
set  to  work  in  the  kitchen.  He  had  borrowed  a  rather 
battered  cupboard-dresser  from  the  ecole,  and  on  this  he 
arranged  all  the  crockery,  plates  neatly  paraded  on  the 
shelves,  coffee-pot,  cups  and  glasses  clean  and  polished. 
The  commissariat  occupied  the  cupboard.  He  arranged  a 
ihelf  over  the  stove  for  the  pots  and  pans.  His  own  bed 


176  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

he  pushed  away  into  the  far  corner,  with  a  couple  of  am- 
munition boxes  underneath  it  to  hold  his  few  belongings 
and  his  clothes.  The  rest  of  the  furniture  included  a 
table,  the  old  arm-chair,  a  couple  of  plain  chairs,  with  a 
second  table  under  the  window. 

Paul  stood  and  looked  round  the  room.  It  pleased 
him;  it  had  the  air  of  a  room  that  was  lived  in,  and  yet 
something  was  lacking.  Everything  was  in  order,  even, 
to  the  box  of  wood  by  the  stove  and  a  glazed  crock  full  of 
water.  A  touch  of  colour  was  needed,  that  little  live  flame 
of  sentiment,  that  unpractical  something  that  appeals  to 
the  heart.  A  man  does  not  live  by  bread  alone,  nor  is 
love  satisfied  with  pots  and  pans.  Brent  went  out  and 
searched,  and  down  by  the  stream  he  found  what  he 
needed,  a  sallow  with  its  soft  yellow  "palm"  blossoms 
shining  in  the  thin,  March  sunlight.  , 

He  gathered  a  bunch  of  palm,  chose  a  blue  and  white 
jug  he  had  found  in  someone's  back  garden,  filled  it  with 
water,  and  arranged  his  bit  of  "life."  The  jug  took  up 
its  vigil  on  the  table  by  the  window.  The  sunlight  struck 
a  note  of  colour  on  the  yellow  blossoms.  Brent  stood  and 
smiled.  He  felt,  somehow,  that  the  room  was  complete. 

About  eleven  o'clock  the  blue  cart  turned  the  corner 
of  the  Rue  Romaine  with  Manon  and  her  yellow  dog 
perched  in  front  of  the  load  of  baggage.  Paul  was  fixing 
a  window-frame  in  the  window  of  one  of  the  ground-floor 
rooms,  and  he  came  forward  hammer  in  hand.  The 
yellow  dog  stood  up  on  Manon's  lap  and  barked  at  him. 

"Be  quiet,  silly." 

Manon  handed  the  yellow  dog  to  Etienne  and  climbed 
down.  She  was  in  a  very  happy  mood,  a  little  excited 
and  exultant. 

"Paul,  this  is  Monsieur  Etienne  Castener." 

The  men  shook  hands,  Etienne  smiling  one  of  his 
broad,  slow  smiles. 

"Tiens,  but  you  have  a  front  door!" 

Manon  had  not  noticed  it,  for  she  had  been  looking  at 
Paul 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  177 

"Mon  Dieu,  BO  we  have !  A  real  door !  When  did  you 
finish  it?" 

"Last  night." 

"Let  me  see  how  it  opens  and  shuts." 

She  ran  up  the  steps  of  the  raised  path,  and  tried  the 
door  like  a  child  playing  with  a  new  toy. 

"A_nd  it  has  a  lock  and  bolts!" 

Etienne  stood  and  stared  at  the  house,  still  smiling 
that  slow,  country  smile.  He  was  easily  astonished,  and 
the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire  astonished  him. 

"You  must  have  worked  like  the  devil,"  he  said. 

Paul  took  a  fancy  to  Etienne.  He  was  one  of  those 
silent  fellows  with  the  smell  of  the  soil  about  him,  and 
he  had  no  tricks. 

"Some  things  are  worth  working  for.  Shall  I  help  you 
unload  the  cart?" 

Manon  had  walked  into  the  kitchen  and  found  herself 
entangled  in  a  new  atmosphere.  It,  too,  had  a  door,  only 
a  matchboard  door  it  is  true,  but  the  door  gave  the  room 
a  new  homeliness.  She  saw  the  dresser  with  its  crockery, 
the  box  of  wood  by  the  stove,  the  table  by  the  window, 
the  blue  and  white  jug  with  its  posy  of  sallow  bloom. 
Her  heart  semed  to  utter  a  little  cry  of  pleasure  and  of 
tenderness.  She  went  forward,  picked  up  the  jug,  and 
buried  her  face  in  the  yellow  palm. 

"A  Frenchman  would  not  have  thought  of  it,"  she  said. 

She  heard  the  two  men  struggling  with  something 
heavy. 

"Manon!" 

She  ran  out. 

"Where  will  you  have  this  V 

It  was  the  cupboard. 

"It  is  for  you,  Paul." 

He  looked  at  her  with  the  eyes  of  a  lover. 

"In  the  kitchen,  then  ?  I  have  prepared  the  cellar  for 
you." 

"The  kitchen,  then." 

She  stood  and  directed  the  two  men,  happy  as  a  little 


178  THE  HQUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE 

housewife  arranging  her  home  for  the  first  time.  Then, 
she  descended  into  the  cellar,  lit  the  candle,  and  experi- 
enced a  moment  of  exquisite  pleasure.  Her  eyes  missed 
none  of  the  details.  This  little  white-arched  cellar  held 
more  than  a  bed,  a  table,  a  cracked  mirror ;  she  felt  in  it 
the  soul  of  the  man  who  had  been  busy  here. 

Paul  was  waiting  at  the  top  of  the  steps.  She  turned 
and  met  him. 

"I  thought  it  would  be  warmer  for  you  down  there," 
he  said. 

She  stood  leaning  against  the  wall. 

"Thank  you,  Paul.  It  is  so  good  to  come  back,  when 
a  man  has  taken  so  much  trouble." 

Brent  was  silent  a  moment. 

"What  will  vou  have  down  there?  The  bed  and  the 
trunks?" 

"Please.     The  wooden  box  can  stay  upstairs." 

When  everything  was  settled,  Etienne  had  unharnessed 
his  horse,  fastened  him  to  the  wheel  of  the  cart,  and  given 
the  beast  water  and  an  armful  of  hay,  they  sat  down  to  a 
meal  in  the  kitchen.  Manon  had  unearthed  a  bottle  of  red 
wine.  She  and  Paul  kept  looking  at  each  other,  and  at  the 
different  pieces  of  furniture  in  the  room.  There  was  a  con- 
spiracy of  pride,  of  congratulation  between  them,  a  half- 
shy  tenderness  that  looked  and  looked  again.  Castener 
was  all  curiosity,  all  questions.  His  eyes  kept  wandering 
up  to  the  roof. 

"You  have  plenty  of  air,"  he  said,  "plenty  of  air." 

And  then : 

"What  will  you  do  for  a  ceiling  ?" 

"I  shall  put  in  a  floor  there  when  I  have  finished  the 
rest  of  the  roof." 

"And  the  stairs?" 

"We  shall  have  to  be  satisfied  with  a  ladder,  to  begin 
with." 

"But  you  will  be  able  to  go  to  bed.  What  does  it 
matter!  And  some  day,  I  suppose,  you  will  line  all  the 
inaide  of  thereof?" 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  179 

"Canvas  to  begin  with ;  wood  when  we  can  get  it." 

Etienne  munched  bread,  and  still  stared  at  the  ceiling. 

"It  is  wonderful,"  he  said,  "quite  astonishing." 

After  the  meal  he  harnessed  his  horse  and  prepared 
to  drive  off. 

"I  must  bring  my  plough  over  here  one  day,"  he  said ; 
"an  acre  or  two  of  ploughed  ground  would  be  useful." 

That  was  the  way  of  the  Casteners ;  they  did  not  appear 
to  see  much,  but  they  saw  what  mattered. 

When  Etienne  had  gone,  Manon  lit  the  stove  and  put 
on  the  coffee-pot.  There  was  no  more  work  to  be  done 
that  day ;  it  was  a  saint's  day ;  there  was  something  sacra- 
mental about  it.  Manon  pointed  out  the  yellow  dog,  who 
had  curled  himself  on  the  arm-chair  in  the  sunlight. 

"We  will  call  him  Thilosophe,' "  she  said;  "he  has 
set  us  a  good  example.  But  there  is  no  reason  why  he 
should  have  that  chair.  It  is  yours." 

Brent  smiled,  picked  up  Philosophe,  and  sat  down  in 
the  chair  with  the  dog  on  his  lap.  He  lit  his  pipe,  and 
they  drank  coffee,  and  talked.  Manon's  eyes  kept  glancing 
round  the  room,  caressing  everything  in  it,  the  soft  eyes  of 
a  woman  who  is  happy.  The  room  was  uncomfortably 
high,  the  walls  showed  patches  of  discoloured  plaster  and 
raw  brickwork,  and  the  window  of  the  room  above  let  in 
rather  too  much  fresh  air — but  it  had  the  atmosphere  of 
home.  You  could  light  a  lamp  at  night,  and  draw  up 
intimate  chairs  close  to  the  stove. 

"What  will  you  do  next  ?" 

Paul  was  pulling  the  yellow  dog's  ears. 

"Finish  all  the  window-frames  and  doors  on  the  ground 
floor,  and  put  up  shutters.  I  suppose  there  is  no  chance 
of  getting  any  glass." 

"Linen  will  have  to  do,  or  canvas,  to  begin  with. 
We  must  divide  up  the  day's  work.  I  shall  take  all  the 
household  work  and  the  garden." 

"What  about  seeds?" 

"I  have  a  whole  boxful  of  seeds  in  that  case.  The 
Casteners  have  promised  to  give  me  potatoes  to  plant, 


180  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

also  young  lettuces  and  cabbages.  If  Etienne  ploughs  up 
part  of  the  meadow  we  can  put  potatoes  in  there,  and 
perhaps  a  little  corn  and  some  winter  roots.  I  am  going 
to  keep  a  few  chickens,  and  later  on  a  cow  and  a  pig." 

"You  will  be  busy." 

Manon  was  looking  at  the  unglazed  window-frame. 

"I  wish  we  could  get  some  of  that  oiled  linen  that  the 
English  have.  The  other  day,  when  Monsieur  Durand  and 
I  drove  from  Rosieres,  we  passed  what  you  call  a  dump." 

Brent's  eyes  brightened. 

"What  sort  of  a  dump  ?" 

"Sheds,  and  great  piles  of  stores,  boxes  under  tarpau- 
lins, and  an  English  soldier  lying  on  a  bench  asleep.  It  is 
close  to  the  railway  line.  I  wonder  if  the  English  are 
selling  their  stores?" 

"I  think  I  will  go  over  some  day  and  have  a  look  at 
that  dump,"  said  her  partner. 


XXV 

WHEN  Louis  Blanc  walked  into  the  Coq  d'Or,  the  old 
men  seated  at  the  white  deal  tables  became  as  mute  as 
birds  when  a  hawk  sails  overhead.  Mademoiselle  Barbe 
was  perched  on  a  high  chair  behind  the  little  comptoir,  sur- 
veying the  room  with  a  pair  of  green-blue  eyes,  eyes  that 
showed  the  white  of  the  eyeballs  between  the  lower  lid  and 
the  edge  of  the  iris.  Mademoiselle  Barbe  had  red  hair, 
a  big  mouth,  and  a  complexion  like  china  clay.  She  was  a 
thin  young  woman,  an  enigmatic  young  woman,  with 
long  limbs,  narrow  hips,  and  a  rather  prominent  bosom. 

"Good  evening,  Monsieur  Blanc." 

Bibi  sat  down  at  the  table  in  a  corner,  his  hands  in 
his  trouser  pockets,  his  feet  thrust  out.  He  looked  in  a 
bad  temper.  One  by  one  the  old  men  got  up  and  went  out, 
for  there  was  no  pleasure  in  gossiping  with  an  uncomfort- 
able fellow  like  Bibi  in  the  room.  He  made  himself  felt 
like  a  thunderstorm  concentrated  within  four  walls,  an 
oppressive  person,  explosive,  threatening  to  make  a  noise 
and  blow  out  the  windows. 

Mademoiselle  Barbe  watched  Bibi.  She  had  the  arched 
and  voracious  nostrils  of  the  woman  who  is  a  natural  bird 
of  prey.  Her  quick  temper  made  men  think  her  capable 
of  a  great  passion,  a  creature  who  could  bite  in  the  excite- 
ment of  a  love  affair,  but  Mademoiselle  Barbe  was  as  cold 
as  a  cat. 

"You  are  in  a  bad  temper  to-night." 

She  took  a  glass  from  the  shelf,  mixed  Bibi  a  drink, 
and  coming  round  from  behind  the  comptoir,  put  the  glass 
on  Bibi's  table.  She  did  not  go  back  to  the  comptoir,  but 
half  leant,  half  sat  on  the  table  next  to  Bibi's,  her  hands 
gripping  the  edge  of  the  table,  thin,  loose-jointed  hands, 
rather  red  about  the  knuckles. 
181 


182  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

Bibi  drank. 

"You  mix  a  drink  very  well." 

"I  always  do  things  well,"  said  Barbe,  with  an  in- 
solent lift  of  the  chin.  "I  have  ideas,  you  know,  like  a 
man." 

Bibi  looked  up  at  her  with  eyes  half  closed.  He  had 
talked  a  good  deal  to  Barbe  of  the  Coq  d'Or.  She  stimu- 
lated him.  She  was  a  clever  girl,  provocative,  the  sort  of 
woman  who  was  Bibi's  natural  partner,  a  woman  who 
could  seize  things  with  her  claws.  And  Louis  Blanc's  men- 
tality was  such  that  when  the  gas  was  out  of  an  enter- 
prise and  his  conceit  somewhat  deflated,  he  needed  a 
woman  like  Barbe,  a  glass  of  absinthe,  and  a  mouthful  of 
rolling  words. 

He  had  boasted  to  Barbe  of  all  that  he  meant  to  do  in 
Beaucourt,  how  he  was  going  to  call  his  hotel  the  "Champ 
de  Bataille,"  and  make  a  fortune  out  of  American  tourists, 
nor  in  Bibi's  vision  were  the  people  of  Beaucourt  forgotten. 
Army  food  bought  cheaply  and  retailed  at  an  immense 
profit  seemed  a  mere  question  of  shrewd  foresight.  Barbe 
had  encouraged  Bibi  to  talk,  perhaps  because  he  piqued 
the  tigress  in  her,  and  she  was  bored  with  tame  men. 
Mademoiselle  was  greedy  and  ambitious,  and  the  Coq  d'Or 
afforded  a  girl  no  scope. 

"That  old  busybody  of  a  Durand  is  going  to  be  a 
nuisance  to  you,"  she  said. 

Bibi  jerked  his  shoulders.  He  had  always  posed  before 
the  red-haired  girl  as  a  devil  of  a  fellow,  a  man  who  always 
got  his  own  way. 

"Durand!  A  talker,  that's  all.  Give  me  a  little  of 
this  stuff  in  Beaucourt,"  and  he  tapped  the  glass  with  a 
finger-nail,  "and  we  will  explode  Anatole  like  a  paper  bag. 
Meanwhile,  I  have  somebody  else  to  settle  with.  When 
people  get  in  my  way,  I  push." 

Barbe  nodded  her  head. 

"That  was  a  dirty  trick,  knocking  down  that  chimney 
of  yours." 

"I  haven't  squared  the  account  yet." 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  183 

"I  thought  you  were  rather  fond  of  Manon  Latour," 
said  the  red-haired  girl. 

"She  had  a  house  that  could  easily  be  repaired." 

"How  cunning  you  are !" 

Bibi  laughed. 

"But  she  would  not  do  business  with  me,  you  see. 
Not  that  I  cared  two  sous  about  her;  I  don't  get  excited 
over  black-haired  women.  I  shouldn't  have  meddled  with 
her  and  her  man  if  they  had  left  me  alone;  but  when  a 
fellow  plays  you  a  trick  like  that !" 

"He  wants  the  boot,"  said  Barbe. 

"He  will  get  it,  my  dear.  The  fellow  has  a  pistol  and 
is  rather  free  with  it,  but  I  shall  manage.  Meanwhile  I 
have  my  plans." 

Barbe  was  interested  in  Bibi's  plans.  She  had  begun 
to  think  that  she  would  like  to  share  in  them,  and  she 
believed  that  she  was  the  very  woman  for  Louis  Blanc.  It 
appeared  that  Bibi  had  postponed  the  scheme  for  re-build- 
ing the  Hotel  de  Paris ;  his  new  idea  was  to  buy  a  couple 
of  big  Adrienne  huts  and  erect  them  in  an  orchard  at  the 
back  of  the  hotel.  The  red  ruin  would  serve  as  a  sort 
of  placard,  a  dramatic  advertisement  for  the  wooden  hotel 
among  the  apple  trees.  "You  make  your  money  quickly," 
he  explained,  "and  then  clear  out.  In  ten  years  the 
sentimental  people  will  be  tired  of  the  battlefields." 

"But  if  Manon  Latour  has  the  same  idea?"  Barbe 
asked. 

Bibi  finished  his  drink. 

"That's  it,"  he  said;  "that  place  of  hers  is  being 
repaired  too  quickly.  But  if  I  frighten  that  fellow  of  hers 
out  of  Beaucourt,  she  will  be  in  a  bit  of  a  fix.  I  shall  hire 
a  gang  to  rush  my  huts  up." 

"Ajad  when  are  you  going  to  get  the  huts  ?"  said  Barbe, 
looking  straight  into  Bibi's  eyes. 

That  was  what  she  wanted  to  know — how  much  solidity 
there  was  behind  this  man's  march-music. 

"I  am  going  to  Amiens  to-morrow  to  see  a  contractor, 
and  I  expect  to  meet  my  friend  who  handles  the  money." 


184          THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

"How  exciting!  And  you  will  come  back  and  tell  me 
all  about  it  ?" 

"You  can  bet  on  that,"  said  Bibi. 

He  was  building  hotels  in  the  clouds  to  impress  the  red- 
haired  girl  and  to  encourage  his  own  conceit.  Boasting 
was  Bibi's  food  of  the  gods;  and,  when  he  had  rolled  a 
procession  of  fine  words  off  his  tongue,  he  began  to  believe 
that  everything  would  be  as  he  said  it  was.  And  yet  there 
was  a  streak  of  cunning  in  all  his  vanity.  He  advertised 
his  visit  to  Amiens,  let  all  Ste.  Claire  know  about  it,  be- 
cause it  was  possible  that  he  might  wish  people  to  think 
him  in  Amiens  when  he  might  be  somewhere  else.  The 
contractor  who  had  army  huts  to  sell  was  a  creature  of 
the  imagination,  and  even  Bibi's  financial  friend  had  be- 
gun to  show  an  inconvenient  cautiousness. 

But  he  went  to  Amiens,  walking  to  Boves  with  a  little 
black  bag  in  his  hand,  and  taking  the  train  from  Boves  to 
Amiens.  He  put  up  at  a  cheap  hotel  in  the  quarter  north 
of  the  cathedral,  and  spent  a  day  visiting  certain  agencies, 
a  firm  of  builders,  and  an  official  at  the  hotel  de  ville. 
Nobody  seemed  to  know  anything;  there  was  a  shrugging 
of  shoulders,  a  suggestion  that  everything  was  waiting 
for  the  people  at  Paris.  Monsieur  Clemenceau,  it  was 
said,  had  made  some  sort  of  promise,  and  the  Tiger  was 
a  man  of  his  word.  The  builder  whom  Bibi  visited 
hinted  that  he  might  be  able  to  obtain  one  big  hut,  but 
it  would  cost  Bibi  forty  thousand  francs,  and  the  price 
did  not  include  charges  for  transport  and  re-erection. 

"It  is  necessary  to  pay  through  the  nose,"  said  the 
gentleman  with  brutal  candour. 

Bibi  spat  and  went  out  denouncing  profiteers.  What 
was  a  soldier  of  the  Republic  to  do  with  such  wolves 
ready  to  tear  the  wool  off  a  sheep's  back  ? 

He  fell  into  a  rage,  and  could  think  of  nothing  but  of 
Manon  Latour  and  the  way  Brent  had  managed  to  baulk 
him.  Bibi  was  always  a  man  of  one  idea,  one  passion. 
Since  his  scheme  for  capturing  and  exploiting  Beaucourt 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  185 

seemed  in  the  air,  its  place  was  taken  by  an  animal  hatred 
of  Paul  and  a  desire  to  humiliate  Manon.  Louis  Blanc  had 
something  of  the  mentality  of  a  madman  whose  whole 
strength  can  be  concentrated  upon  one  definite  and  violent 
act.  His  power  of  self-expression  was  purely  physical. 
He  had  the  cunning  of  a  savage,  but  very  little  self- 
control.  It  is  difficult  for  decent  people  to  understand 
how  certain  crimes  are  committed.  Appetite  will  explain 
many  of  them,  appetites  that  flush  with  hot  blood  those 
baser  centres  of  a  brain  that  have  not  received  the  living 
impress  of  social  self-consciousness. 

Louis  Blanc  settled  his  bill  at  the  hotel,  walked  to  the 
station  and  left  his  black  bag  at  the  consigne.  He  went 
out  into  the  town  again,  bought  some  bread  and  cheese  and 
a  bottle  of  wine,  and  had  supper  at  an  estaminet.  About 
nine  o'clock  he  started  out  of  Amiens  on  foot,  not  hurrying, 
for  he  had  plenty  of  time  to  reach  Beaucourt  before 
daylight. 

About  an  hour  before  sunrise  he  pushed  through  a  gap 
in  a  hedge  south  of  the  Rue  Romaine  and  worked  his  way 
through  the  orchards  to  the  back  of  the  stone  house  opposite 
Manon's  cafe.  Bibi  had  explored  the  stone  house  on  one 
of  his  previous  visits.  Its  staircase  had  not  been  destroyed, 
and  it  was  possible  to  reach  the  upper  rooms,  one  of  which 
still  retained  its  joists  and  a  few  floor  boards.  This  par- 
ticular room  faced  the  street  and  had  had  a  ragged  hole 
drilled  in  its  front  wall  by  the  shell  of  an  English  sixteen- 
pounder.  Bibi  entered  the  stone  house  from  the  yard  at 
the  back,  treading  very  carefully  lest  he  should  set  a  tin 
rolling  or  crack  a  piece  of  fallen  tile  under  his  boot.  He 
sat  down  in  one  of  the  ground-floor  rooms  until  there 
was  sufficient  light  to  prevent  him  bungling  the  climb 
up  the  rickety  stairs.  The  ruin  was  full  of  the  greyness 
of  the  dawn  when  he  took  his  boots  off,  crawled  up  the 
stairs,  and,  scrambling  across  the  joists,  lay  flat  on  the 
platform  of  floor  boards,  and  close  to  the  hole  in  the 
wall. 


186  THE  HOUSE  OF  AD VENTUKE 

He  had  a  good  view  of  the  house  across  the  street,  and 
by  moving  his  head  he  found  that  he  could  see  the  whole 
of  it,  and  also  a  large  part  of  the  garden.  The  shell-hole 
in  the  wall  was  less  than  a  foot  in  diameter,  and  by  keeping 
well  back  in  the  shadow  Bibi  felt  pretty  sure  that  his  face 
would  be  almost  invisible  to  any  one  across  the  way. 
He  had  been  lying  there  about  twenty  minutes  when  he 
heard  the  cafe  door  unlocked,  and  saw  Brent  come  out 
with  a  bucket  in  his  hand.  Paul  dropped  out  of  Bibi's 
view  when  he  jumped  down  from  the  raised  path  and  went 
to  the  well  to  draw  water.  Bibi  heard  him  washing  in  the 
street,  and  sousing  his  head  in  the  bucket. 

But  Louis  Blanc  was  tired.  He  had  the  whole  day 
before  him,  and  he  had  his  own  particular  plan.  He  meant 
to  make  Paul  fight,  hand  to  hand  and  body  to  body,  and  he 
wanted  to  eliminate  the  odds  in  favour  of  a  man  who  might 
carry  a  pistol  in  his  pocket.  So  Bibi  ate  some  of  his  bread 
and  drank  a  few  mouthfuls  of  wine,  and  went  to  sleep, 
curled  up  against  the  wall. 

The  day's  work  was  in  full  swing  over  the  way  when 
Louis  Blanc  woke  up  and  looked  out  through  his  poriiiole. 
It  was  a  March  morning,  with  a  wind  humming  in  the 
ruins  and  clouds  moving  quickly  across  a  broad  blue  sky. 
Paul  was  up  on  the  roof,  fixing  the  rafters  on  the  other 
half  of  the  house,  and  the  splashes  of  passing  sunlight 
played  upon  the  white  timber,  his  blue  breeches  and  darker 
coat.  It  was  the  sound  of  his  hammering  that  had 
awakened  Bibi.  Manon  was  at  work  in  the  garden,  sleeves 
and  skirt  rolled  up,  turning  over  the  soil  with  a  spade. 

Bibi  lay  like  a  big  cat  and  watched  them.  The  morn- 
ing passed  away,  and  about  noon  he  saw  Manon  enter  the 
house  and  move  to  and  fro  in  the  kitchen.  Smoke  showed 
at  the  top  of  the  chimney,  signalling  the  approach  of  the 
dinner  hour.  Presently  Manon  appeared  on  the  path 
and  called  to  her  man,  and  Brent  came  down  from  the 
roof. 

When  the  meal  was  over,  Bibi  saw  Paul  standing  at  the 
kitchen  window,  lighting  his  pipe.  Manon  was  clearing 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  187 

the  table,  and  talking  to  Paul.  Brent  loitered  a  moment, 
and  then  came  out  on  to  the  footpath. 

"I  shall  be  back  before  dark." 

Bibi  heard  the  words  very  clearly.  He  saw  Brent  turn 
back  when  he  had  passed  the  window,  and  take  something 
out  of  his  pocket. 

"I'll  leave  you  this." 

"Put  it  on  the  table,"  said  Manon. 

Bibi  saw  Paul  reach  in,  place  the  revolver  on  the 
table,  and  walk  away.  He  turned  up  the  road  to  Rosi- 
eres,  and  disappeared  behind  the  ruined  houses.  Bibi  lay 
and  watched  the  window,  the  pistol  lying  there  on  the 
table  and  the  figure  of  Manon  moving  about  the  room. 

"If  she  forgets  to  pocket  that  pistol?"  he  thought. 

And  Manon  did  forget  it.  She  went  back  to  her  work 
in  the  garden,  and  Bibi  seized  his  chance. 

He  took  off  his  boots,  descended  ike  stairs,  looked  cara- 
tiously  out  of  the  doorway,  and  then  made  a  dash  across 
the  street.  He  came  back  with  the  revolver,  and  turned 
to  his  observation  post  in  the  upper  room.  Manon  was 
still  digging  in  the  garden,  turning  up  the  brown  soil  under 
the  shadow  and  cunlieht  of  the  March  sky. 


XXVI 

PATH,  BRENT  was  bound  for  Harlech  Dump,  those  huts 
and  little  hillocks  of  stores  that  Manon  had  seen  on  the 
road  to  Kosieres. 

Paul  was  not  concerned  with  the  economies  of  Harlech 
Dump.  He  had  four  fifty-franc  notes  in  his  pocket,  and  in 
his  head  a  list  of  articles  that  would  be  very  welcome  at 
the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire.  He  wanted  canvas,  oiled  linen, 
screws,  nails,  door-hinges,  window-fittings,  paint,  paint- 
brushes, locks,  an  additional  bucket,  some  extra  tools. 
Harlech  Dump  was  like  a  quarry  in  a  land  that  had  no 
stone.  It  was  a  temptation  to  any  man  involved  in  the 
primitive  struggle  for  existence  in  such  a  wilderness.  It 
was  food  laid  out  in  sight  of  men  who  were  hungry,  and 
guarded  by  a  bored  N.C.O.,  two  physically  unfit  privates 
and  the  theoretical  fence  of  international  commercial  ar- 
rangements. Brent  wanted  to  buy.  He  did  not  know 
what  steps  the  Disposal  Board,  or  whatever  the  authority 
might  happen  to  be  called,  was  taking  to  rid  itself  of  these 
stores.  Certain  civilized  needs  cried  out  for  satisfaction- 
Over  there  in  England  people  had  houses  to  live  in,  a 
grocer  and  a  butcher  round  the  corner,  roofs  to  keep  out 
the  rain.  Kent  had  not  been  pulped  into  brick  dust  and 
Maidstone  pounded  into  a  rubbish  heap. 

Harlech  Dump  stood  in  the  corner  of  a  field  where  the 
Eosieres  road  crossed  the  railway  line.  The  farm-house  to 
which  the  field  had  belonged  showed  as  a  red  ruin  against 
the  background  of  a  wood  of  poplars.  The  dump  had  all 
the  dreariness,  the  bald,  boot-worn  manginess  of  such 
places.  There  was  a  stodge  of  mud  about  it  that  was  dry- 
ing with  the  March  wind  and  changing  its  colour  from 
brown  to  a  yellowish  grey.  Two  rusty  Nissen  huts  faced 

1 88 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  189 

each  other  across  a  roadway  made  of  cinders.  Duck-board 
tracks  lay  about  the  place  like  huge  dead  worms  oozing  into 
the  sludge  and  the  slime  of  the  soil. 

The  dump  looked  deserted  when  Brent  came  down  the 
hill,  and  crossed  a  corduroy  bridge  over  a  big  ditch.  A 
brown  figure  sat  on  the  doorstep  of  one  of  the  Nissen  huts, 
scraping  a  pair  of  boots  with  a  jack-knife.  The  man  waa 
wearing  no  puttees;  his  buttons  were  dirty;  he  had  not 
shaved.  Even  at  a  distance  of  thirty  yards  Brent  recog- 
nized all  the  significant  symptoms  of  a  "fed-upness"  that 
reminded  him  of  Wipers  and  no  leave. 

The  man  turned  his  head  like  a  sulky  bird  and  looked  at 
Brent  without  curiosity.  He  was  one  Corporal  Sweeney, 
in  charge  of  the  guard  at  Harlech  Dump.  The  guard  was 
asleep  and  snoring  inside  the  Nissen  hut,  sleeping  the 
sleep  of  the  bored.  There  was  no  estaminet  within  ten 
miles,  and  the  few  trains  that  were  running  passed  by  on 
the  other  side. 

Brent  walked  up  the  cinder  track.  He  meant  to  try 
his  French  on  the  keeper  of  the  dump,  and  if  French  would 
not  serve  he  could  fall  back  on  bastard  English  improvised 
for  the  occasion. 

"Bon  jour,  monsieur." 

Corporal  Sweeney  went  on  scraping  his  boots. 

"Go  to  hell,"  he  said. 

Brent  smiled  as  though  Corporal  Sweeney  had  uttered 
words  of  English  politeness. 

"Parlez-vous  f rangais,  monsieur  ?" 

"Urn  poo,"  said  the  corporal;  "learnt  it  in  your 
billets." 

"Vous  avez  bien  de  choses  ici,"  Brent  indicated  the 
stores  with  a  sweep  of  the  hand. 

"What's  that?" 

"I  spik  liddle  English,  monsieur.  I  find  house — village 
— napoo — comme  ga.  C'est  triste,  c'est  terrible!" 

"Come  back  to  roost  in  the  rubbish,  have  you  ?" 

Corporal  Sweeney's  broad  face  lost  some  of  its  stiffness. 

"What  village  ?" 


190  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

"Beaucourt,  monsieur.  I  work  the  night,  I  work  the 
day;  I  put  on  roof." 

"Tidyin'  up  the  'appy  'ome." 

Brent  plunged. 

"Is  it  possible,  monsieur,  peut-etre  que  vous  vendez 
leschoses?" 

"Do  what,  bloke  ?" 

"Sell ?" 

"Sell!"  said  Corporal  Sweeney,  "Fd  sell  the  whole 
dump." 

And  then  he  added,  "I  want  to  get  home." 

The  thought  of  "home"  caused  an  emotional  explosion 
in  this  bored  and  unshaven  man.  It  roused  a  sudden 
exasperation  in  him,  an  exasperation  that  produced  a 
feeling  of  sympathy  for  this  supposed  Frenchman.  Cor- 
poral Sweeney  was  home-sick,  Paul  homeless.  The  remedy 
seemed  so  obvious  to  a  man  who  spent  a  great  deal  of  the 
day  cursing  the  dump,  the  authorities  who  made  the  dump, 
the  authorities  who  kept  the  dump  where  it  was.  Why  the 
hell  didn't  they  sell  it,  give  it  away,  or  send  it  home? 
Corporal  Sweeney  did  not  bother  his  head  about  official 
subtleties,  the  difficulties  of  transport,  the  question  of 
finance.  He  was  not  interested  in  the  pocket  of  the 
English  Public;  in  fact,  he  was  in  a  mood  to  pick  that 
pocket  and  distribute  the  proceeds  to  his  pals. 

"Capitalists !  That's  what  I'm  doin'  here  in  this  muck 
'cap.  Protectin'  the  property  of  the  bloke  that  pays  taxes. 
He's  at  home,  makin'  money,  and  loo&in'  after  the  kids." 

He  got  up  and  walked  about,  and  became  aware  of  a 
fifty-franc  note  in  Brent's  hand.  He  flared. 

"What's   that?     Put  that  money   away.      Compris?" 

Brent  put  it  away. 

"Mais  oui,  monsieur.  Comme  vous  voulez.  Mais,  il 
faut  payer " 

"Come  'ere,"  said  the  brown  man.  "Lord  love  you, 
'do  you  think  anybody  knows  what  they've  got  in  the  dump  ? 
Course  they  don't  know.  Got  a  list,  have  I  ?  Yes,  and  it's 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE  191 

all  wrong ;  who  bothers  now  the  war's  over  ?  What  d'ye* 
want  for  the  home  ?" 

Brent  made  a  pretence  of  trying  to  understand. 

"You  no  sell,  monsieur  ?" 

"I  want  to  get  home,"  said  the  corporal,  "and  the 
French — they  want  this  stuff.  Me  or  Clemenceau  or  Lloyd 
George  would  settle  the  biz  in  five  minutes;  the  Tape- 
worms '11  take  years.  Come  'ere." 

He  conducted  Brent  to  a  big  hut  that  Paul  had  not 
seen  before,  and  kicked  open  the  door.  The  hut  was  full 
of  miscellaneous  stores,  like  a  ship-chandler's  shop  or  an 
ironmonger's  warehouse.  And  Brent  was  tempted.  Like 
Corporal  Sweeney  he  was  a  simple  man  in  need  of  certain 
simple  things,  and  he  wanted  so  little.  If  he  helped  him- 
self, he  would  owe  the  British  Public  something,  but  the 
British  Public  owed  Paul  Brent  something,  his  unclaimed 
gratuity  and  back  pay.  His  one  fear  was  lest  he  should 
get  the  corporal  into  trouble. 

"Catch  hold, — prenez." 

"Mais,  monsieur,  Jt'officier  vous  en  vondra,  n'est-ce 
pas?" 

"Officier — fini.  They  don't  know  what's  here  any 

more  than  I  do.  And  they  don't  b y  well  care.  Voyez- 

vous  ?" 

Brent  looked  round  the  hut.  He  saw  the  very  raw 
material  he  needed,  canvas,  oiled  linen,  paint,  ironmong- 
ery, stuff  to  make  the  bowels  of  a  reconstructive  artist 
yearn.  He  nodded,  smiled  at  the  corporal,  and  shrugged 
his  shoulders. 

"You  let  me  take  some  things,  monsieur?" 

"Catch  hold,"  said  Sweeney. 

Paul  made  his  selection,  but  he  made  it  like  a  Puritan, 
and  with  an  eye  as  to  how  much  he  could  carry.  A  roll  of 
canvas,  a  smaller  roll  of  oiled  linen,  a  seven  pound  tin  of 
red  paint  and  one  of  green,  two  brushes,  four  locks,  six  sets 
of  butt-hinges,  some  screws,  a  keyhole  saw,  an  assortment 
of  nails  and  tacks.  He  made  a  bundle  of  the  plunder  by 


192  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

rolling  it  up  in  the  canvas  and  lashing  it  with  a  length 
of  cord. 

The  corporal  looked  on  approvingly.  He  was  a  man 
who  worked  with  his  hands,  and  the  Frenchman's  nice  and 
practical  taste  in  choosing  his  raw  material  piqued  the 
domesticated  craftsman  in  him.  Moreover,  this  fellow  was 
not  greedy. 

"I've  got  an  old  hen  house  at  home,"  he  said,  "needs 
paintin',  and  some  new  tarred  felt  on  the  roof.  Lord  love 
a  duck,  wish  I  was  there." 

Brent  tried  the  bundle  on  his  shoulder.  He  found  that 
it  was  not  too  heavy  for  him  to  carry. 

"Monsieur,"  he  said,  "tousand  thanks.  If  officier  says 
pay— I  pay." 

"Officer — nah  poo.  The  stuff  will  only  rot  here,  old 
cock." 

Paul  shook  hands  with  the  corporal. 

"Monsieur,  you  visit  Beaucourt.  Fumez  cigarette, 
drink  glass  of  vin  rouge." 

"Bong,  tres  bong,"  said  Corporal  Sweeney;  "me  for 
Beaucourt,  mossoo,  toote  sweet." 

Brent  took  the  road  to  Beaucourt  with  that  bundle  on 
his  back.  The  wind  had  dropped,  and  the  western  sky  was 
a  great  arch  of  blue,  with  the  sun  coming  and  going  behind 
hummocks  of  white  cloud.  From  the  hill  above  Harlech 
Dump  Brent  could  see  Beaucourt,  a  distinct  chequer  of 
red  and  white  between  the  purple  of  the  woods,  the  broken 
spire  of  its  church  a  soft  blue  line  against  the  blue  horizon. 
He  dropped  his  bundle  and  sat  down  to  rest  on  the  bank 
side  of  the  road,  with  the  sunlight  playing  on  him  through 
the  branches  of  a  road-side  apple  tree.  There  was  a  little 
wood  behind  him  and  in  it  birds  were  singing. 

Brent  sat  and  looked  towards  Beaucourt,  and  his 
thoughts  were  of  the  simplest.  He  was  busy  making  a 
canvas  ceiling  or  canopy  for  the  kitchen,  and  filling  his 
windows  with  oiled  linen.  He  had  a  boyish  desire  to  go 
home  and  to  paint  that  front  door,  at  once  and  without 
delay — a  joyous  Aj>ril  green.  It  was  very  pleasant  to 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  193 

•work  for  Manon.  She  was  so  delighted  with  things  that  he 
always  felt  that  he  wanted  to  fetch  her  to  see  any  new  piece 
of  work  that  he  had  completed.  He  liked  to  watch  her; 
eyes  and  face  light  up. 

Some  day  he  would  try  his  hand  at  painting  a  sign- 
board and  nail  it  up  over  the  front  door.  "Cafe  de  la 
Victoire,"  and  underneath  it  her  name,  "Manon  Latour." 

But  it  was  possible  that  her  name  might  not  be  Manon 
Latour. 

Brent  smiled  and,  picking  up  his  bundle,  walked  on 
towards  Beaucourt.  He  was  well  content  with  life,  a  life 
that  was  full  of  the  fascination  of  contriving,  creating, 
conquering ;  a  simple  life  in  which  hands  and  head  worked 
together.  No  thought  of  Louis  Blanc  crossed  his  mind. 
The  evening  was  too  peaceful. 


XXVII 

ABOUT  four  o'clock  that  afternoon  Louis  Blanc  came 
down  the  stairs  of  the  stone  house,  crossed  the  street,  and 
walked  into  the  kitchen  of  the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire.  Manon 
was  still  working  in  the  garden,  and  Bibi  strolled  about 
the  room  with  the  air  of  a  man  in  possession,  his  hands  in 
his  pockets,  his  eyes  looking  at  everything  with  cynical 
amusement.  These  two  people  were  preparing  to  make 
themselves  comfortable;  they  had  their  furniture,  their 
pots  and  pans,  plenty  of  food  to  eat  and  wood  to  burn. 
The  red  and  blue  tiles  of  the  floor  had  been  scrubbed  until 
they  had  regained  some  of  their  pre-war  polish.  The  table 
by  the  window  had  a  cretonne  cover,  blue  pansies  on  a 
green  ground.  The  crockery  on  the  dresser  reflected  the 
pleasant  pride  of  the  housewife. 

Bibi  threw  his  cap  on  the  table,  pulled  the  arm-chair  up 
to  the  stove  and  sat  down.  The  blue  coffee-pot  was  stand- 
ing on  the  stove,  but  the  fire  had  gone  out,  and  it  was  no 
business  of  Bibi's  to  light  it. 

"I  will  have  my  coffee  when  she  comes  in,"  he  said  to 
himself ;  "it  is  her  business  to  serve  her  clients." 

The  position  of  the  arm-chair  did  not  satisfy  him,  for 
there  was  no  warmth  in  the  stove,  and  the  chair  did  not 
occupy  the  strategic  point  necessary  to  Bibi's  plan.  He 
moved  it  back  against  the  opposite  wall  and  close  to  the 
door,  so  that  anybody  entering  by  the  door  would  not  see 
the  chair  or  its  occupant  until  they  were  well  inside  the 
room.  Bibi  splurged  in  it,  legs  spread,  in  an  attitude  of 
comfortable  arrogance.  He  was  always  a  man  of  attitudes, 
especially  when  there  was  a  woman  in  the  game. 

He  had  been  sitting  there  for  half  an  hour  before  he 
194 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUEE  195 

heard  Manon's  footsteps  on  the  stones  of  the  raised  path. 
She  suspected  nothing,  but  had  suddenly  remembered 
that  she  had  left  the  revolver  on  the  table  by  the  window ; 
also  it  was  time  to  light  the  fire.  Bibi  had  shut  the 
kitchen  door,  nor  did  Manon  remember  that  she  had 
left  it  open.  Louis  Blanc  had  drawn  in  his  feet,  and  was 
sitting  upright  in  the  chair,  his  left  arm  extended  and 
laid  across  the  door  like  a  spring  compressed  to  close  it 
at  the  psychological  moment. 

Manon  lifted  the  latch  and  walked  in.  Her  eyes  were 
turned  towards  the  table  by  the  window  and  the  pistol 
that  should  have  been  there;  the  door  hid  Bibi.  She 
went  towards  the  table.  The  door  closed  behind  her 
like  the  lid  of  a  trap. 

"Good  evening,  madame." 

Manon  turned.  She  saw  Bibi  sitting  there  with  an 
unpleasant  smile  on  his  face.  He  had  edged  his  chair  a 
foot  to  the  left  so  that  it  was  impossible  for  her  to  open 
the  door.  He  held  her  caged.  And  Manon  understood 
in  that  moment  of  fear  that  Louis  Blanc  had  her  pistol. 

"It  is  you,  monsieur." 

She  spoke  quite  calmly,  for  after  the  first  leap  of  the 
heart  her  courage  came  back  to  her.  It  was  necessary 
to  be  calm  and  cool  with  a  man  like  Bibi ;  she  knew  that 
by  instinct.  It  was  her  business  to  try  and  hold  all 
horror  and  fear  at  arm's  length,  to  refuse  to  believe  in 
Bibi's  beastliness,  to  find  out  what  the  danger  was  and 
how  to  meet  it. 

"You  are  always  a  man  of  surprises,  monsieur.  Mean- 
while I  must  light  the  fire." 

Bibi  kept  looking  at  her  and  smiling  and  saying  noth- 
ing. He  reminded  Manon  of  Marius,  the  village  idiot, 
who  was  always  smiling  and  pulling  the  hair  on  his  chin ; 
but  Marius  had  never  attacked  a  woman.  Manon  walked 
to  the  stove,  and,  standing  so  that  she  could  watch  Bibi, 
lifted  the  round  top,  and  dropped  in  some  paper  and 
wood  from  the  fuel  box. 

"I  will  have  coffee."  said  Louis  Blanc. 


196  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE 

"Bien,  monsieur." 

"And  an  omelette." 

"So  the  cafe  is  to  be  christened,  is  it  ?  I  shall  have  to 
charge  three  francs  for  an  omelette;  provisions  are  diffi- 
cult here." 

"Don't  worry  yourself;  I  owe  a  bill  already." 

She  went  to  the  cupboard  and  collected  what  she  wanted, 
eggs,  butter,  a  frying-pan,  bread,  coffee  and  a  tin  of 
milk.  Bibi  watched  her.  She  was  so  deliberate,  so  un- 
flurried,  holding  him  at  a  distance,  treating  the  affair 
&a  a  casual  incident.  Her  composure  piqued  him.  He 
had  a  sudden  desire  to  see  Manon  inflamed,  struggling 
while  he  held  her  down  and  buried  his  mouth  deep  in  her 
warm  throat. 

He  put  his  hand  into  his  coat  pocket  and  drew  out 
the  butt  of  the  revolver.  He  glanced  quickly  at  Manon. 
She  had  seen  what  he  had  wished  her  to  see,  and  he  let 
the  pistol  slip  back  into  his  pocket. 

"You  would  like  some  herbs  with  your  omelette,  mon- 
sieur?" 

Her  eyes  were  black  and  steady. 

"Yes,  some  herbs." 

"Perhaps  you  would  like  to  come  nearer  the  stove. 
It  will  be  warmer." 

"This  place  suits  me.  And  hurry  up.  I'm  hungry." 
Manon  went  on  with  her  cooking,  opening  the  iron  door 
from  time  to  time  and  pushing  a  handful  of  wood  into 
the  stove.  She  was  wondering  when  Paul  would  return, 
fand  what  would  happen  when  he  returned.  Bibi  was 
thinking  of  what  might  happen  before  Brent  came  back. 
He  no  longer  desired  Manon  because  she  was  Paul's;  he 
desired  her  because  of  her  white  throat  and  plump  arms, 
and  that  body  that  would  struggle. 

Manon  did  not  hurry.  She  wished  the  cooking  of  that 
omelette  would  last  for  ever;  it  seemed  a  sort  of  queer 
barrier  between  Bibi  and  herself,  a  postponement  of  the 
beastly  purpose  that  looked  out  at  her  from  the  man's  eyes. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  197 

She  knew  what  she  felt,  what  she  feared,  what  she  shrank 
from. 

"So  you  are  all  alone  here  ?" 

"My  partner  will  be  back — very  soon." 

The  omelette  was  ready.  She  turned  it  out  upon  a 
plate,  and  Bibi  stood  up,  pushing  the  arm-chair  against 
the  door  with  one  foot,  while  he  caught  hold  of  another 
chair  and  turned  it  towards  the  table.  He  sat  down. 
Manon  pushed  the  plate,  the  bread,  and  a  knife  and  fork 
across  the  table,  and  poured  out  a  cup  of  coffee. 

Bibi  ate.  He  had  an  unclean  way  of  eating,  and  an 
ugly  trick  of  pushing  out  his  lower  lip  like  a  ledge  and 
shovelling  the  food  over  it.  He  tore  the  bread  with  his 
fingers.  M anon  had  helped  herself  to  a  cup  of  coffee,  and 
all  the  while  she  was  listening. 

"Sit  down,  madame." 

"I  prefer  to  stand." 

Bibi  looked  at  her  curiously,  as  though  she  were  part 
of  the  food  on  the  table. 

"This  fellow  of  yours  works  hard." 

"He  is  a  very  good  partner,  monsieur." 

"He  works  too  hard,"  and  then  he  made  a  coarse  jest 
at  Paul's  expense. 

Manon  stared  at  Bibi  as  though  she  did  not  understand 
him. 

"Do  not  pretend  to  be  so  innocent.  A  woman  only 
pulls  up  her  petticoat  when  she  pretends  to  look  inno- 
cent." 

"Yes,  that  was  always  your  idea  of  a  woman,  Monsieur 
Blanc." 

Bibi  finished  his  second  cup  of  coffee,  and  wiped  his 
mouth  on  his  hand. 

"So  you  think  this  fellow  Brent  is  a  better  man  than 
I  am." 

"I  have  never  thought  about  it.  There  was  no 
necessity." 

"You  are  mistaken.     I  shall  have  to  put  the  matter 


198  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

right.  I  don't  like  to  think  of  a  pretty  woman  believing 
what  isn't  true." 

He  got  up  from  the  table  and  went  and  sat  in  the  arm- 
chair by  the  door  and,  feeling  in  the  breast  pocket  of  his 
coat,  brought  out  a  little  black  cigar. 

"A  match." 

Manon  took  a  box  from  the  shelf  and  threw  it  to 
him.  He  caught  the  box,  and  flourished  it  with  an  air  of 
gaiety,  the  cigar  stuck  aggressively  between  his  lips. 
Manon  watched  him  light  the  cigar  and  puff  blue  smoke, 
making  a  sucking  noise  with  his  lips.  She  had  always 
hated  Bibi,  but  her  hatred  of  him  became  more  like  a  foul 
taste  in  her  mouth. 

"Something  to  eat,  something  to  smoke,  and  a  woman  to 
talk  to.  Come  and  sit  on  my  knee,  coquette." 

Manon  began  to  clear  the  plates  from  the  table. 

"That  is  not  on  the  bill  of  fare,  monsieur." 

He  was  smiling. 

"I'll  include  it.  I  am.  owed  a  good  deal.  Come 
here — at  once." 

Manon  set  the  plate  and  cup  on  the  dresser,  and  loitered 
a  moment,  fighting  the  horror  of  Bibi's  gradual  attack. 
She  felt  herself  helpless,  shut  up  in  a  cage  with  a  beast  who 
sat  there  and  gloated.  She  knew  that  it  was  useless  to 
appeal  to  the  decent  man  in  Louis  Blanc,  and  that  evasions 
would  only  amuse  him.  She  wondered  how  long  it  would 
be  before  he  grew  violent,  how  long  she  would  be  able  to 
hold  him  off.  And  if  Paul  returned,  it  might  only  add  to 
the  horror. 

"Come  here." 

She  made  herself  face  Bibi,  but  kept  the  table  between 
them. 

"The  joke  has  gone  far  enough,  monsieur;  it  does  not 
please  me." 

"So  you  think  it  is  a  joke  ?" 

"Of  course." 

He  was  lying  back  in  the  chair  with  his  legs  spread  out. 

"No,  it  is  not  a  joke.     Regardez!" 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  199 

He  took  the  revolver  out  of  his  pocket. 

"Come  here,  or  I  shoot." 

"You  are  very  brave  to  threaten  a  woman  with  a 
pistol." 

"Is  it  the  pistol  you  object  to  ?" 

"Of  course." 

He  stood  up,  and,  posing  himself,  threw  the  revolver 
through  the  unglazed  window.  It  fell  somewhere  in  the 
ruins  across  the  road,  breaking  the  great  silence  with  one 
ringing  and  discordant  note.  The  gesture  pleased  Bibi. 
He  turned  to  Manon,  smiled,  and  sat  down  again  in  hia 
chair. 

"Voila!  Your  man  will  have  to  fight  with  his  fists. 
And  if  he  does  not  fight  after  I  have  emptied  his  glass 
for  him,  well,  he  will  smell  like  a  goat,  hey?" 

Manon  felt  stiff,  frozen,  unable  to  move,  yet  her  heart 
was  beating  hard  and  fast,  and  she  knew  that  her  knees 
were  trembling.  She  began  to  grow  angry,  angry  with  the 
fierceness  of  a  wild  thing  trapped  and  played  with  and 
tormented  beyond  her  patience.  There  was  a  knife  on  the 
table.  She  was  ready  to  snatch  at  that  knife  and  fight. 

"Are  you  coming  here,"  said  Bibi,  "or  shall  I  fetch 
you?" 

"You  beast!"  she  said. 

Manon  had  expected  his  violence  and  it  came  like  the 
leap  of  a  dog.  Bibi  pushed  the  table  against  her  with  a 
thrust  of  one  big  boot,  so  that  she  was  thrown  against  the 
stove.  She  had  made  a  grab  at  the  knife,  but  before  she 
could  strike  at  him,  Bibi's  long  body  was  leaning  over  the 
table,  and  he  had  her  by  the  wrist 

"Drop  it!" 

Her  brown  eyes  blazed  into  his. 

"You  beast." 

"C'est  ca." 

He  took  the  cigar  from  his  mouth  and  held  the  red  end 
against  her  forearm.  Manon  flinched,  twisted,  cried  out. 

"Drop  it." 

Her  fingers  relaxed,  the  knife  fell  on  the  floor. 


200  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

Bibi  tossed  the  cigar  into  a  corner,  and  suddenly,  with 
a  straightening  of  his  long  back  he  pulled  Manon  over  the 
table,  catching  the  other  wrist,  and  turning  her  over  so  that 
her  face  was  under  his. 

"Now  then " 

Someone  was  coming  along  the  path.  Manon  heard 
a  man  whistling,  and  the  sound  of  his  footsteps.  She  cried 
out  in  anguish : 

"Paul!  Paul!" 


XXVIII 

PAUL  BBENT  gave  one  look  through  the  unglazed  win- 
dow, dropped  his  bundle  on  the  path  and  made  for  the  door. 
Half  a  minute  ago  he  had  been  walking  slowly  up  the  Hue 
de  Rosieres  with  that  camel's  hump  of  a  bundle  on  his 
back,  feeling  fagged  and  ready  for  a  rest,  but  there  was 
no  tiredness  about  the  man  who  went  in  to  rescue  his 
mate. 

When  Brent  stormed  in,  overturning  the  chair  that 
had  stood  against  the  door,  he  found  Bibi  waiting  for  him 
like  a  bear  with  its  paws  ready  to  rip.  The  overturned 
chair  lay  between  them,  its  legs  in  the  air  as  though  it  were 
shouting  a  ridiculous  protest  and  trying  to  keep  these  two 
wild  men  apart.  Manon  had  slipped  away  and  was  lean- 
ing against  the  dresser,  her  dress  torn  open  at  the  throat, 
her  eyes  swimming  black  in  a  dead  white  face. 

Brent  and  Bibi  looked  at  each  other.  There  was  noth- 
ing to  be  said,  nothing  that  words  could  express  or  satisfy. 
Then  Bibi  pushed  the  chair  aside  with  a  sweep  of  a  big 
foot,  and  the  two  men  rushed  in. 

Bibi  could  box  a  little,  but  there  was  no  science  in  that 
fight ;  it  was  just  a  savage  rough  and  tumble.  The  French- 
man was  a  head  taller  than  Paul,  heavier,  and  longer  in 
the  arms.  He  could  have  floored  Brent  at  the  first  punch 
had  the  affair  been  less  of  a  whirlwind.  Paul  went  in  bull- 
headed,  smothered  a  smash  at  his  face,  and  ducking,  got 
his  arms  round  Bibi's  body.  He  had  the  under-grip  and 
was  shorter  and  stockier  than  the  Frenchman,  and  he 
rushed  Bibi  against  the  table,  heaved  him  over  and  got  on 
top. 

Freeing  his  right  hand,  he  tried  for  Louis  Blanc's 
throat,  but  in  mere  animal  strength  he  was  no  match  for 


202  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

this  great  stallion  who  had  always  boasted  that  he  had  the 
legs  of  a  horse.  Bibi  gripped  Paul  round  the  middle. 
His  legs  wrapped  themselves  round  Brent's;  he  heaved, 
twisted,  rolled  Paul  on  his  side.  They  remained  like  that 
for  a  moment,  Bibi  jerking  his  lean  throat  away  from  the 
grip  of  Paul's  right  hand.  Then  Bibi  gave  another  twist. 
He  came  up  and  had  Brent  under  him,  his  jaw  digging 
into  Paul's  throat,  and  so  close  that  his  own  throat  was 
guarded. 

"Voila!" 

Manon  saw  the  smear  of  satisfaction  on  his  face,  and 
her  heart  sickened.  She  had  stood  aside,  watching,  till 
she  saw  that  Bibi  had  her  man  pinned  under  his  big  body. 
She  picked  up  a  knife  from  the  dresser  and  came  forward. 

"Let  go." 

Bibi  glanced  up,  showing  his  teeth,  and  that  momentary 
slackening  of  his  attention  gave  Brent  a  chance.  He  got 
one  foot  round  the  leg  of  the  table,  and  managed  to  roll 
Bibi  to  one  side.  They  had  been  near  the  edge  of  the  table 
and  they  fell,  Brent  uppermost,  Bibi's  head  striking  the 
tiled  floor. 

Brent  broke  free  and  stood  up,  panting.  He  saw  that 
he  would  have  to  keep  the  fighting  open,  the  beast  was  too 
strong  for  him  at  close  quarters.  He  jerked  a  glance  at 
Manon. 

"Run,  get  out  of  the  room." 

She  tried  to  force  the  knife  on  him,  but  Brent's  rage 
would  have  none  of  it.  He  was  not  ripe  yet  for  a  clutch 
at  any  sort  of  weapon.  Bibi,  still  giddy,  was  scrambling 
up,  his  mouth  and  chin  all  slaver.  Brent  rushed  at  him, 
and  struck  hard  and  straight  with  a  workman's  arm  and 
fist,  and  Bibi  went  back,  knees  sagging,  his  feet  paddling 
like  the  feet  of  a  duck.  Brent  swung  again,  missed,  fell 
against  the  Frenchman  and  was  shoved  back  with  the  flat 
of  the  hand  in  his  face.  Brent  staggered  against  the  table, 
hung  there  a  moment,  and  went  in  again  like  a  game 
dog  that  has  been  rolled  over  but  not  hurt.  But  Bibi  had 
recovered  his  balance  and  had  had  a  second  in  which  to 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE  203 

think.  As  Brent  came  at  him  he  lashed  out  with  his  right 
foot,  a  full,  swinging,  upward  kick  that  caught  Paul  in  the 
stomach. 

Brent's  face  went  the  colour  of  clay.  His  mouth  gaped. 
The  kick  had  sent  him  reeling  down  the  room.  He  seemed 
to  bend  over  himself,  to  double  up  in  the  middle.  He  fell 
in  the  corner,  turned  over,  writhing,  and  lay  face  down- 
wards, legs  quivering.  He  was  conscious  of  nothing  but 
a  knot  of  agony  in  his  stomach,  a  vast  nausea,  a  desire  to 
vomit. 

Bibi  stood  and  stared.  His  shoulders  drooped  a  little, 
and  his  head  was  none  too  steady,  but  he  appeared  to  perk 
up  into  sudden  arrogance  like  a  big,  triumphant  bird. 
He  flapped  his  arms,  opened  his  mouth,  and  the  laugh  that 
came  from  it  was  like  a  crow. 

"That's  burst  the  balloon,"  he  said. 

Then  he  became  conscious  of  Manon.  She  was  standing 
between  him  and  Brent,  but  a  little  to  one  side,  her  face 
white  and  stiff  with  a  vague,  shocked  wonder.  She  seemed 
to  hesitate,  her  impulse  stooping  towards  the  man  who  now 
lay  huddled  in  the  corner. 

Suddenly  she  turned  on  Bibi.  Her  lips  were  thin, 
bloodless;  she  looked  starved,  but  in  her  eyes  there  was 
something  indescribable,  a  facing  of  the  ultimate  vileness 
of  Bibi's  strength,  a  defiance  of  physical  defeat. 

"Yes,  and  what  next?" 

Bibi  seemed  to  rear  on  his  haunches,  his  hands  stuck 
in  his  pockets. 

"Your  fellow  is  thrashed.  He  is  no  good,  is  he  ?  I  can 
take  what  I  want,  my  dear.  What  do  you  say  ?" 

She  hung  her  head  as  though  beaten,  her  wits  struggling 
against  a  sense  of  helplessness. 

"And  all  this  happens,  because  a  silly  ruin  is  blown 
down  by  the  wind." 

"You  got  in  my  way,  both  of  you." 

"We  were  here,  that's  all.  Haven't  you  any  decent 
feeling?" 

Bibi  looked  at  her  with  flat  eyes  that  gloated.     The 


204:  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUEE 

physical  rage  was  still  strong  in  him,  and  he  was  taking  his 
triumph. 

"You  wouldn't  have  me.  You  shan't  have  him.  I  can 
finish  with  him  presently,  and  then  I'll  finish  with  you." 

"There  are  the  gendarmes,"  she  said. 

Bibi  splurged. 

"Rubbish !  We're  in  the  wilderness,  wild  man's  land. 
I  can  do  what  I  please.  That  fellow  got  in  my  way,  and 
I  have  kicked  his  belly  in.  Who's  to  know  if " 

She  shuddered.  She  was  looking  at  Paul,  and  suddenly 
she  saw  his  hand  move  as  though  making  a  sign.  Her 
eyes  swept  back  to  Bibi ;  he  was  watching  her ;  he  had  not 


"You  have  beaten  him ;  is  that  not  enough  V 

"If  I  get  what  I  want  for  it." 

"Be  reasonable." 

"Drop  that  knife,"  he  said ;  "you  have  still  got  it  behind 
your  back." 

She  let  it  fall  on  the  floor.  She  wanted  to  keep  Bibi 
talking  to  hold  him  off. 

And  Brent  lay  there,  listening.  His  strength  was  com- 
ing back;  he  had  been  sick,  and  the  pain  had  died  to  an 
ache  of  the  muscles.  His  rage  was  returning,  a  cold  rage 
that  lay  low  and  was  cunning.  He  was  up  against  savag- 
ery, a  beast  who  had  to  be  fought  with  the  methods  of 
a  beast.  Eight  down  in  the  core  of  his  brain  was  the 
thought  that  he  had  got  to  beat  Bibi,  even  if  he  killed  him. 
That  kick  had  brought  Brent  down  into  the  primitive 
trough;  there  were  no  rules,  no  nicenesses,  no  points  of 
honour  in  a  savage  scramble  with  a  man  like  Louis  Blanc. 

He  listened.  Manon  was  talking,  talking  for  time. 
He  loved  Manon,  and  his  love  was  a  rage. 

"Paul  is  dying,"  he  heard  her  say. 

Bibi  shrugged. 

"He's  quiet,  anyway." 

Brent  moved  slightly,  groaned ;  but  his  body  was  stiffen- 
ing  like  a  spring.  If  only  he  had  some  weapon!  Hia 
right  hand  went  out  slowly,  gropingly,  into  the  corner,  and 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  205 

touched  something  smooth  and  cold.  It  was  an  empty 
wine-bottle,  the  bottle  that  he,  Manon,  and  old  Durand  had 
emptied  a  few  days  ago.  He  gripped  the  neck  of  it,  braced 
himself,  his  left  arm  pressed  against  the  wall. 

He  was  on  his  feet  before  Bibi  moved.  A  wooden  chair 
stood  against  the  wall  close  to  where  Brent  had  been  lying, 
and  as  the  Frenchman  rushed  in,  Paul  grabbed  the  chair 
and  swung  it  at  Bibi's  feet.  It  tripped  him,  nearly 
brought  him  down,  and  as  he  hung  there,  pawing  the  air  to 
get  his  balance,  Brent  smashed  at  his  head  with  the  empty 
bottle.  It  broke,  leaving  the  neck  a  jagged  end  in  Paul's 
hand. 

Bibi  was  down  over  the  chair.  He  made  a  grab  at 
Brent  and  caught  the  front  of  his  coat ;  his  face  was  up- 
turned and  Paul  struck  at  it  with  that  dagger  of  glass. 
He  saw  Bibi's  face  change  like  a  grotesque  mask;  the 
mouth  opened,  the  eyes  closed,  the  forehead  was  a  knot 
of  anguish.  He  uttered  a  cry,  and  began  to  claw  at  Brent 
like  a  beast  gone  mad.  Paul  struck  him  again,  and 
wrenched  free,  leaving  a  piece  of  his  coat  in  one  of  Bibi's 
paws. 

Bibi  was  on  his  feet  now,  his  face  a  red  stream.  He 
groped,  made  a  rush,  and  stumbled  over  the  chair,  and 
Brent  realized  that  the  man  was  blind.  The  glass  had 
entered  one  eye,  and  the  other  was  full  of  blood. 

He  slipped  round  the  centre  table,  with  a  glance  at 
Manon  who  had  run  to  the  door;  he  made  a  sign  to  her, 
a  sign  that  she  understood. 

Bibi  mopped  his  eyes  with  his  fists.  The  hideousness 
of  him  was  a  thing  Brent  never  forgot.  And  the  beast 
was  dangerous,  agonized  with  pain  and  the  rage  of  its  half 
blindness.  He  blundered  against  the  dresser,  and  brought 
half  the  crockery  clattering  to  the  floor.  And  suddenly  he 
seemed  to  get  a  glimpse  of  Brent  through  the  red  fog  of  his 
own  blood,  and  he  charged,  arms  swinging.  Paul  slewed 
the  table  round,  but  Bibi  lunged  forward  over  it,  and  got 
a  grip  of  Brent's  coat. 

Paul  tore  free,  striking  at  Bibi's  arm.     He  had  to  keep 


206  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE 

away  from  those  ferocious  and  clawing  hands,  and  he  knew 
it,  but  Bibi  was  blind  again,  and  raising  himself  up  from 
his  sprawling  position  on  the  table. 

"Paul " 

Manon  had  come  back,  and  she  carried  the  short  iron 
crow-bar  in  her  hand  that  Brent  had  used  in  dismantling 
the  huts. 

"Keep  out,"  he  said  hoarsely,  "it's  too  foul,  this." 

She  went,  after  giving  him  that  bar  of  iron. 

Bibi  was  shaking  his  head  like  a  dog  just  out  of  the 
water.  His  foot  touched  something  on  the  floor — the 
knife  that  Manon  had  dropped ;  he  groped  for  it,  and  stood 
up.  He  had  begun  to  curse,  calling  Brent  every  foul  thing 
under  the  sun,  and  he  kept  on  cursing  as  he  felt  his  way 
forward.  There  was  cunning  in  Bibi.  He  fumbled  at 
the  table,  seeing  Paul  dimly  through  a  red  mist,  and  sud- 
denly he  vaulted  on  to  the  table  and  made  a  scrambling 
rush  at  Brent. 

Brent  swung  at  the  upraised  arm.  The  bar  caught  the 
forearm  bones  about  two  inches  above  the  wrist,  and  he 
heard  them  crack.  The  knife  fell;  Bibi's  hand  sagged 
over  like  the  absurd  stuffed  hand  of  a  dummy.  But 
Brent's  gorge  was  rising  over  this  filthy  scramble,  this 
savagery  of  animals  in  a  cage.  He  steadied  himself, 
brought  the  bar  down  over  Bibi's  head,  and  saw  him 
crumple  to  the  floor. 

Brent  stood,  staring.  He  felt  sick,  unsteady,  a  man 
who  had  got  up  to  the  neck  in  some  foul  ditch.  There  was 
no  exultation  in  him,  yet  no  pity.  He  had  downed  a  mad 
beast,  and  he  was  grim  and  cautious. 

He  bent  down  and  pulled  Bibi  against  the  wall.  He 
did  not  think  there  was  any  more  fight  in  Louis  Blanc,  but 
he  took  no  risks.  Up-ending  the  table,  he  lowered  one  end 
of  it  on  to  Bibi's  legs,  and  loaded  the  arm-chair  on  to  the 
table.  That  would  prevent  a  man  who  was  playing  'pog- 
eum  from  getting  up  too  quickly. 

"It's  all  over,  thank  God." 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  20T 

She  came  in  to  him,  an  impetuous  passionate  figure, 
arms  spread,  eyes  alight. 

"Oh,  my  Paul !" 

Her  emotion  was  like  a  flood  of  rain,  a  perfume,  some 
softening  human  passion  after  those  moments  of  savagery 
and  bloody  sweat.  She  ran  to  Brent  and  Paul  caught  her. 
Her  head  was  on  his  shoulder ;  she  trembled ;  she  clutched 
him  with  tender  hands;  her  body  seemed  to  warm  itself 
against  his. 

"Oh,  my  Paul,  we  are  saved!" 

"Ma  cherie." 

Then  she  broke  down,  and  with  a  passion  that  went  to 
Paul's  heart.  He  was  human  once  more,  a  decent,  gentle 
fellow;  the  beast  was  dead;  her  tears  seemed  to  cleanse 
him. 

"It  was  my  fault,  my  foolishness.  I  left  the  pistol  lying 
by  the  window,  and  he  must  have  been  watching.  He 
threw  it  across  the  street  into  the  ruins.  It  need  never 
have  happened." 

Brent  held  her  head  in  the  hollow  of  one  hand,  and 
looked  down  into  her  wet  face. 

"Well,  it  has  happened.  Perhaps  it  was  better  that 
it  should  happen,  once  and  for  all." 

"Is  he  dead?" 

Paul  glanced  over  one  shoulder  at  Bibi,  and  his  eyes 
hardened. 

"No,  but  he  has  all  he  can  carry,  one  eye  gone,  and  a 
broken  wrist." 

Manon  was  feeling  in  the  pocket  of  her  apron,  and  she 
showed  Paul  the  pistol  that  Bibi  had  thrown  into  the  ruins. 
"I  ran  across  a  moment  ago,  and  I  had  good  luck.  I 
found  it  almost  at  once.  Keep  it."  Brent  slipped  the 
pistol  into  his  pocket,  and  discovered  that  Manon's  face 
seemed  growing  dim.  He  could  not  feel  his  feet;  his 
knees  shook;  he  was  exhausted,  and  Manon's  tears  and 
clinging  hands  had  exhausted  him  still  further.  This  flare 
of  emotion  and  the  exultation  of  it  had  left  him  faint. 


208  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

"Ma  cherie,  I'm  done  up." 

She  had  felt  his  weariness  almost  before  he  had  begun 
to  tremble,  and  she  became  the  little  woman  who  had  no 
more  use  for  tears.  He  staggered  as  she  helped  him 
towards  the  table  by  the  window.  He  seemed  to  collapse 
on  it,  bending  his  head  till  his  forehead  touched  the  wood. 

"Oh,  you  are  hurt!" 

"Something  to  drink,"  he  said. 

She  ran  to  the  cupboard  and  brought  back  a  bottle  half 
full  of  red  wine,  and  sitting  on  the  table,  she  raised  Paul 
and  held  his  head  against  her  shoulder.  It  made  her  think 
of  giving  a  sick  child  its  drink,  and  an  indefinable  tender- 
ness stirred  in  her.  She  held  the  bottle  to  his  lips,  letting 
him  drink  a  little  at  a  time. 

"That's  better,"  he  said  as  the  wine  warmed  him  and 
put  a  new  flick  into  his  heart;  "I  could  eo.t  something." 

Her  shoes  crunched  on  the  broken  crockery  as  she 
searched  in  the  cupboard  for  food.  She  brought  him  a 
slice  of  cold  meat,  and  some  bread  and  cheese,  and  Paul 
ate — while  she  sat  beside  him.  And  suddenly  they  seemed 
to  become  conscious  of  the  outer  world,  of  a  rich  sunset, 
of  a  stream  of  golden  light,  and  the  sound  of  a  blackbird 
singing.  A  thrill  of  joy,  of  mystery,  ran  through  both  of 
them.  They  looked  into  each  other's  eyes  and  kissed. 


XXIX 

PAUL  had  found  his  pipe ;  he  was  filling  it  and  staring 
at  the  floor,  when  something  yellow  whisked  into  the 
kitchen.  It  was  Philosophe,  Philosophe  who  had  been 
missing  all  day  and  who  now  floated  in  with  an  air  of 
having  been  round  the  corner.  The  dog  yapped  and 
pawed  at  Manon's  apron. 

"A  lot  of  use  you  have  been  to  us,"  said  Brent. 

But  Manon  kissed  Philosophe's  head  and  then  pushed 
him  away. 

"I  could  forgive  anything  to-night." 

"Even— that?" 

She  pressed  her  hands  to  her  eyes. 

"No,  not  that.     What  are  we  to  do  now  ?" 

They  heard  a  sudden  sound  in  the  silence,  a  queer 
sound  that  startled  both  of  them.  Philosophe  was  licking 
Bibi's  face. 

Brent  stood  up  with  a  tightening  of  the  mouth  and 
limbs. 

"Come  here." 

The  dog  sneaked  out  from  behind  the  table  and  went 
and  lay  down  by  the  stove. 

Brent  removed  the  chair  and  the  table.  He  found 
Manon  standing  beside  him,  and  together  they  looked 
'down  at  this  mountain  of  a  man  who  lay  stretched  along 
the  wall.  Dusk  had  come;  the  room  was  filling  with  it, 
and  a  little  darkness  covered  the  mask  of  Bibi's  mutilated 
face.  He  moved  a  leg,  stirred  slightly,  and  seemed  to 
become  conscious  of  physical  pain. 

Paul  and  Manon  looked  at  each  other. 

"What's  to  be  done  ?"  her  eyes  asked  his. 

Brent  was  grim.  He  stood  biting  the  stem  ol  hii 
209 


210  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

pipe,  a  man  who  had  not  forgotten  and  who  would  never 
forget.  Things  might  have  turned  out  so  differently.  He 
had  no  pity  for  the  man  down  there. 

"Don't  touch  him,"  he  said;  "keep  away.     He's  foul." 

She  caught  her  breath. 

"I  couldn't  touch  him.     But  must  he  stay  here  ?" 

"Good  God,  no,"  said  Brent.  "This  place  has  got  to  be 
cleaned." 

Bibi  moved.  He  raised  his  head,  propping  himself  on 
one  elbow.  He  seemed  to  be  thinking,  remembering,  feel- 
ing, but  like  a  dull,  helpless  animal.  He  rubbed  at  his 
eyes  and  uttered  a  foul  word.  Brent's  back  seemed  to 
stiffen. 

"Hallo,"  he  said. 

Louis  Blanc  raised  himself  to  a  sitting  position,  his 
back  against  the  wall.  He  looked  up  at  Paul,  his  head 
rolling  from  side  to  side,  his  slashed  face  a  thing  of  loath- 
ing. Everything  was  dim  to  Louis  Blanc,  even  the  voice 
of  the  man  who  spoke  to  him. 

"Water,"  he  said. 

Paul  stood  over  him,  yet  keeping  his  distance,  for  though 
the  beast  was  maimed  he  might  still  be  dangerous,  and  he 
was  taking  no  chances  with  Bibi. 

"Don't  move.     Do  you  hear  what  I  say  ?" 

Bibi  used  a  foul  word,  but  Brent  caught  him  up. 

"Drop  that  and  listen.  I  have  that  pistol,  see ;  we 
found  it  all  right,  and  if  you  try  any  tricks  I  shall  shoot 
and  shoot  to  kill.  Sit  there  and  take  your  orders,  and 
keep  that  foul  tongue  of  yours  quiet." 

Bibi  said  nothing ;  he  was  beaten,  a  battered  thing,  half 
blind,  sullen  with  pain.  Paul  had  spoken  to  Manon,  and 
she  was  pouring  some  wine  and  water  into  a  glass  that  had 
survived  the  storm.  She  brought  it  to  Brent,  also  a  thick 
slice  of  bread  cut  from  a  loaf,  and  Brent  put  the  glass  and 
the  bread  on  the  floor  and  pushed  them  within  Bibi's  reach, 
using  the  end  of  the  iron  bar. 

"That's  the  way  to  feed  a  wild  beast,"  he  said,  "if 
I  touched  you  again  I  might  kill  you." 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  211 

Bibi  lifted  the  glass  in  his  left  hand ;  his  head  was  verj 
unsteady,  and  he  spilt  some  of  the  wine  down  his  chin; 
the  stuff  stung  his  cut  lips,  but  he  drank  it  down,  and 
began  to  mumble  the  bread.  The  room  was  full  of  the 
dusk,  and  M anon  lit  the  candle.  Paul  had  gone  to  the 
window,  and  was  sitting  on  the  table,  watching  Bibi.  The 
candle  light  lit  up  Brent's  face ;  it  was  a  serious,  frowning 
face,  the  face  of  a  man  who  had  made  up  his  mind  about 
something. 

"I'll  take  a  sandwich  with  me,"  he  said. 

The  candle  light  flickered  in  Manon's  eyes. 

"But  where  are  you  going  ?" 

"Half-way  to  Ste.  Claire;  sort  of  slave-gang  stunt.  He 
has  got  to  foot  it  somehow." 

She  looked  into  her  man's  eyes  and  said  nothing.  There 
was  a  calm  blue  glare  in  them  that  she  could  not  hare 
softened  even  if  she  had  pitied  Bibi. 

"Supposing  he  cannot  walk  so  far  ?" 

"We  didn't  ask  him  to  come  here.  He  is  going  to 
walk  four  miles.  After  that — I  have  finished  with  him." 

He  turned  to  Bibi. 

"Do  you  hear  ?  You  have  got  to  get  out  of  this.  You 
want  a  doctor.  I'll  see  you  half-way  to  Ste.  Claire." 

Bibi  grunted. 

"I  can't  do  it." 

Brent  spoke  quietly,  but  he  showed  no  mercy. 

"Get  up.  No,  I'm  not  going  to  help  you,  or  touch 
you.  You  will  get  a  doctor  at  Ste.  Claire;  you'll  get  no 
doctor  in  Beaucourt." 

And  Louis  Blanc  moved.  He  rose  slowly  on  his  feet, 
steadying  himself  against  the  wall,  and  stood  there,  feel- 
ing his  strength. 

"Come  on,"  he  said  sullenly,  "you  are  merciful  sort 
of  people,  you  two.  I'm  half  blind.  You'd  like  to  see  me 
in  the  ditch,  wouldn't  you  ?  But  I'U  get  to  Ste.  Claire." 

Manon  had  slipped  a  paper  of  bread  and  cheese  into 
Paul's  pocket. 

"Quick  march." 


212  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

He  watched  Bibi  grope  to  the  door,  and  half  feel  his 
way  out  of  the  house  and  down  into  the  street.  It  was 
growing  dark,  and  Brent  followed  him  at  a  distance  of  a 
couple  of  yards,  the  revolver  in  one  hand,  the  iron  bar  in 
the  other. 

"I  shall  be  back  soon,"  he  called  to  Manon. 

And  so  he  set  out  to  drive  this  half-blind  Polyphemus 
out  of  Beaucourt,  walking  among  the  ruins  like  Bibi's 
shadow,  ready  to  shoot  if  the  man  in  front  of  him  hesitated 
or  hung  back.  Neither  of  them  spoke,  save  when  Brent 
uttered  a  word  of  warning.  "Right.  .  .Left.  .  .Keep  in 
the  middle  of  the  road."  He  found  that  Bibi's  pace  was 
lengthening  when  they  had  passed  the  factory,  and  were 
on  the  road  to  Bonniere,  and  he  went  along  at  a  steady 
slouch.  The  stars  were  out  overhead,  and  there  was  no 
wind  rustling  the  dead  grass  and  weeds  in  the  wild  fields 
beside  the  road.  They  heard  the  sound  of  their  own  feet 
on  the  broken  pave,  nothing  more. 

Brent  wondered  what  was  passing  in  the  mind  of  the 
man  in  front  of  him,  and  the  picture  of  Bibi  lurching  along 
in  the  darkness  brought  back  the  night  of  a  memory  in 
the  Arras  batle  of  1917.  Paul  had  marched  a  German 
prisoner  back  from  the  line,  a  big,  tusk-faced  sergeant- 
major  who  had  been  badly  wounded  in  the  right  shoulder, 
and  Brent  remembered  how  all  the  swagger  had  gone  out 
of  the  German.  He  had  thought  of  one  thing  and  one 
thing  only,  how  long  it  would  be  before  they  reached  a 
dressing-station.  He  had  kept  on  worrying  Brent:  "I 
bleed,  Tommy,  I  bleed." 

They  had  covered  two  miles  when  Louis  Blanc  spoke. 
He  was  sullen,  but  something  stronger  than  his  hatred  of 
Brent  marched  at  his  heels. 

"What's  the  time?" 

"I  don't  know.     Perhaps  about  half  past  seven." 

Bibi  walked  on  in  silence  for  several  minutes.  Brent 
noticed  that  their  pace  had  increased. 

"Have  we  passed  Des  Ormes  ?" 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  213 

"Don't  know  the  place,"  said  Brent.     "Why?" 

"There's  a  road  that  turns  off  there,  the  road  to  Boves." 

"Why  do  you  want  to  go  to  Boves  ?" 

"I  shall  find  a  doctor  at  Boves.     I  want  one,  don't  I  ?" 

And  Brent  understood.  Like  that  German  at  Arras, 
Louis  Blanc  was  tame;  he  had  the  fear  of  death  in  him, 
or  the  fear  of  blindness,  which  is  the  living  death.  Every 
step  that  he  took  was  so  much  ground  covered  on  the  road 
to  a  place  where  a  man  might  be  found  with  hands  that 
could  heal. 

A  queer,  elemental  pity  stirred  in  Brent,  a  feeling  that 
even  penetrated  and  suffused  itself  through  his  physical 
loathing  of  this  man. 

"You  want  to  go  to  Boves  ?"  he  asked. 

"Yes." 

"Where  does  the  road  turn  off?" 

"Past  the  farm  called  Des  Ormes,  a  clump  of  dead 
elms  close  to  the  road." 

"I'll  look  out  for  it,"  said  Brent. 

He  kept  his  promise,  and  managed  to  make  out  these 
ghostly  trees  reaching  out  their  black  and  maimed  ten- 
tacles towards  the  stars,  and  learning  from  Bibi  that  the 
road  to  Boves  branched  off  on  the  right  hand  about  a 
hundred  yards  farther  on,  he  watched  for  it,  and  found  the 
road  as  a  greyish  streak  diverging  across  the  darker  fields. 

"This  is  the  place." 

Louis  Blanc  grunted. 

"You'll  be  bringing  in  the  police,  I  suppose?" 

Brent  did  not  answer  him  at  once,  and  Bibi  began  to 
fidget.  He  stood  poking  his  head  like  an  eager  dog  in 
the  direction  of  Boves. 

"It  all  depends,"  said  Brent,  "on  Madame  Latour'a 
Wishes." 

"Hell!  Never  mind;  are  you  sure  this  is  the  road?" 

"It's  the  first  road  on  the  right  after  Des  Ormes.  Can 
you  see  ?" 

"Enough.     I'm  off." 


214  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE 

And  he  went  slouching  away  into  the  darkness,  leaving 
Brent  standing  there,  nor  did  Brent  move  until  he  could  no 
longer  hear  the  grinding  of  Bibi's  boots  upon  the  road. 

At  Beaucourt,  in  that  room  of  her  simple  affection, 
Manon  had  sat  for  a  while  by  the  light  of  the  candle,  look- 
ing at  the  debris  left  by  those  two  struggling  men.  What  a 
sordid  affair,  what  a  horror  to  be  forgotten  and  washed 
out  of  the  mind !  A  chair  broken,  furniture  overturned, 
crockery  smashed  on  the  floor, — a  patch  of  blood  on  the 
tiles  where  Bibi  had  been  stretched  by  the  wall.  And 
Philosophe,  true  to  his  name,  asleep  beside  the  stove,  car- 
ing nothing  for  what  had  happened. 

Manon  jumped  up.  The  inspiration  was  obvious,  and 
yet  passionate  in  its  demands.  She  must  get  rid  of  this 
pollution,  put  it  at  once  out  of  her  life,  her  life  that  was 
Paul's.  A  great  tenderness  was  awake  in  her,  a  feeling 
that  this  little  room  was  sacred,  and  that  it  had  to  be 
resanctified.  She  lit  another  candle  and  set  to  work  to 
cleanse  it ;  sweeping  up  the  broken  glass  and  crockery  and 
carrying  it  out  in  a  box  to  the  ruins  across  the  road.  She 
set  the  furniture  in  order,  and  finding  the  blue  and  white 
jug  broken  on  the  floor,  and  Paul's  bunch  of  yellow  palm 
lying  beside  it,  she  gathered  up  this  emblem  of  the  spring, 
found  another  bowl  for  it,  and  placed  it  in  the  same  place 
on  the  table.  There  remained  that  red  stain  on  the  floor.  It 
revolted  her,  but  she  made  a  mop  of  an  old  sack,  and 
washed  out  the  stain.  Yet  her  ideal  of  purification  was 
not  complete;  this  room  was  to  have  a  living  atmosphere, 
warmth,  light,  homeliness.  She  wanted  Paul  to  see  it 
again  as  he  had  seen  it  before  that  savage  fight.  She  lit 
the  stove,  put  a  pan  of  water  on  to  boil,  spread  a  clean  cloth 
on  the  table,  laid  two  plates,  two  cups,  two  knives  and 
forks,  a  dish  of  meat,  cheese  and  bread.  Then  she  drew 
the  arm-chair  close  to  the  stove  and  sat  down  to  wait 
Philosophe,  undisturbed  by  these  practical  yet  spiritual 
activities,  still  slept,  and  the  dog's  passivity  was  a  piece  of 
comforting  naturalism,  like  the  bunch  of  yellow  palm  on 
the  table. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE  215 

Paul  returned  earlier  than  he  had  expected.  She  ran 
to  the  door  to  meet  him,  and  found  him  struggling  with 
the  bundle  that  he  had  left  lying  on  the  path. 

"I  had  forgotten  this,  and  nearly  fell  over  it." 

She  caught  hold  of  one  end,  and  helped  him  in  with  it. 
Then  she  closed  the  door,  and,  going  to  the  stove,  pretended 
to  be  busy  making  her  coffee,  but  she  was  all  waiting — 
as  a  woman  waits — to  see  whether  her  man  had  the  inward 
and  the  outward  vision. 

Paul  noticed  everything,  the  clean  floor,  the  bunch  of 
palm  on  the  table  by  the  window,  the  white  cloth,  the 
tidy  dresser.  It  was  good,  all  good,  the  very  touch  hia 
heart  asked  for.  He  looked  at  Philosophe,  who  had  not 
troubled  to  get  up  and  greet  him.  Tranquillity  had  re- 
turned ;  Manon  had  washed  away  the  stains. 

He  went  softly  across  the  kitchen,  and  put  a  shy  man's 
arm  round  her. 

"What  a  good  piece  of  work  you  make  of  life,"  he  said. 

She  turned  to  him  quickly. 

"Here  is  your  chair  by  the  stove." 

She  was  looking  up  into  his  face;  he  was  grey,  weary 
to  the  point  of  exhaustion,  but  the  shine  in  his  eyes  broke 
through  all  the  physical  shadows. 

"Just  the  same  as  before,"  he  said,  "and  like  you, 
clean  and  good.  Ma  cherie,  I'm  just  all  out." 

She  made  him  sit  down  in  the  chair,  and  drew  up  the 
table  so  that  he  could  take  his  supper  by  the  stove.  Paul 
let  himself  relax,  for  there  was  a  sharp  ache  in  the  muscles 
that  had  been  bruised  by  Bibi's  boot.  He  looked  at  the 
stove,  at  the  sleeping  dog,  at  Manon,  and  the  day's  work 
seemed  done. 

"Would  you  like  your  plate  on  your  lap  ?" 

"No,  I'll  turn  to  the  table." 

She  did  not  worry  him  with  questions,  sensing  his 
weariness  and  the  happy  and  human  sloth  that  had  fallen 
upon  his  body.  His  face  regained  its  colour;  the  tired 
lines  were  softened ;  he  had  the  air  of  a  man  who  was  well 
content. 


216  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

Presently  he  lit  his  pipe,  and  looked  up  at  her  with  a 
flicker  of  tender  humour  in  his  eyes. 

"A  lot  of  good  that  dog  was  to  us!  A  good  name — > 
Philosophe.  He  got  out  of  the  way,  like  the  clever  people 
during  the  war." 

She  gave  Philosophe  a  gentle  kick,  but  he  took  not  the 
least  notice. 

"And  Bibi  ?"  she  asked. 

"He's  beaten,"  he  said;  "I  believe  we  have  finished 
with  Bibi." 

He  described  Bibi  as  a  big  and  frightened  shadow 
lurching  along  the  road  to  Boves. 

"Shall  we  put  the  police  on  him  2"  he  asked  her. 

"It's  for  you  to  say." 

Brent  looked  at  her.  Her  eyes  had  darkened.  There 
are  things  that  no  woman  likes  to  see  dragged  into  the 
hard  light  of  a  law  court. 

"Let  us  leave  it  alone,"  he  said.  "I  have  a  feeling 
that  we  have  finished  with  Bibi.  I  hate  stirring  up  mud ' 
life's  been  so  clean  here." 

She  made  a  sudden  movement  towards  him;  and  Paul 
sat  up,  took  her  face  between  his  hands  and  kissed  her. 

"Good  God,"  he  said,  "it  seems  a  lot  for  a  man  like 
me  to  ask  for!  All  that  I  know  is — that  I'm  going  to 
make  good  here.  Will  you  let  me  prove  it  ?" 

Manon's  eyes  held  his. 

"You  are  too  much  afraid  of  people,  Paul.  If  we  are 
partners,  let  us  be  honest.  Why  should  we  not  tell  old 
Durand  and  the  Casteners  and  people  like  that " 

"What  shall  we  tell  them  ?" 

"Mon  ami,  you  are  making  me  the  man." 

He  drew  her  face  to  him  again,  and  kissed  her  slowly 
and  with  great  tenderness. 

"All  right,"  he  said ;  "but  I'll  Jiot  marry  you  till  this 
place  is  all  that  I  want  to  make  it." 

She  laid  her  hands  on  his  shoulders. 

"What  queer  things  you  men  are,  some  of  you.  If  it 
was  not  for  that,  I  would " 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  217, 

"Tell  me,"  he  said,  his  hands  en  her  wrists. 
She  gave  a  quick,  defensive  smile. 
"No,  show  me  what  is  in  that  bundle.    It's  so  exciting, 
this  new  home." 


XXX 

IT  seemed  to  Paul  Brent  that  peace  and  the  spring  came 
suddenly  to  Beaucourt,  and  that  even  in  this  war-scarred 
country  there  was  a  beauty  that  had  a  mystery  and  a 
strangeness  of  its  own. 

The  fruit  trees  in  Manon's  orchard  were  big  with  bud. 
Brent  had  joined  her  in  reclaiming  the  garden ;  the  rubbish 
and  broken  boughs  had  been  cleared  away,  the  wall 
mended,  the  fruit  trees  pruned  and  cleaned,  the  soil 
dug  over.  Seeds  were  in  with  neat  little  labels  showing 
the  rows — lettuces,  beans,  peas,  early  potatoes.  Paul  had 
rescued  and  nailed  up  the  hardy  vine  that  grew  on  the 
south  wall  of  the  house. 

He  was  happy.  He  liked  to  wander  down  to  the  stream, 
and  see  the  willow  blazing  gold,  the  young  grass  lushing 
up,  the  purple  woods  ready  to  burst  into  leaf.  The  great 
chestnuts  in  the  avenue  at  the  chateau  were  beginning  to 
open  their  brown  buds.  Paul  found  violets  in  flower  on  a 
sunny  bank,  and  came  back  with  a  child's  handful  of  them 
to  Manon.  He  heard  the  wryneck  in  the  woods,  and 
soon  the  cuckoo  would  be  calling,  and  as  for  the  blackbirds 
they  sang  to  him  night  and  morning.  The  war  had  been 
merciful  to  Beaucourt  in  passing  over  it  so  lightly,  and  the 
spring  seemed  to  call  for  the  brown  faces  and  the  strong 
hands  of  the  peasants. 

It  would  seem  that  the  world  has  to  rediscover  the  great 
truth  that  it  is  the  simple  things  that  matter  in  life.  The 
sap  in  the  stem  of  a  young  oak  is  worth  all  the  orchids  that 
ever  were  pampered.  Paul  Brent  was  fortunate  in  his 
happy  drift  into  the  simple  and  innocent  life,  with  its 
elemental  needs  and  primitive  triumphs.  He  was  to 
escape  so  much  of  the'  disillusionment  of  the  years  after  the 
218 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE  219 

war,  nor  was  he  to  become  the  victim  of  that  strange 
physical  apathy  that  flamed  now  and  again  into  feverish 
erotism.  Men  had  had  the  strong  drink  of  an  abnormal 
excitement  snatched  away  from  them.  They  were  pushed 
back  to  the  bench  and  the  desk  and  the  coal  seam,  and  life 
eeemed  a  damnable  dulness.  Money  meant  escapa  There 
were  thousands  who  were  mad  for  money. 

Brent  fell  straight  into  the  lap  of  nature,  with  a  fresh 
handful  of  simple  ideals  ready  to  be  sown,  and  he  sowed 
them  in  Beaucourt  and  watered  them  with  a  happy,  human 
sweat.  He  did  not  want  to  slack  and  talk  and  theorize; 
the  days  were  too  short  for  him.  He  loved  the  work  of 
his  hands,  the  simple  sensations,  the  smell  of  the  sawdust, 
the  crisply-curled  shavings  his  plane  ripped  from  a  plank, 
the  new  nails  he  hammered  in,  the  paint,  the  clang  of  his 
hammer,  the  snoring  of  his  saw,  the  smell  of  the  soil. 
Life  was  good.  The  whole  house  was  re-roofed;  he  had 
more  leisure  to  enjoy  the  true  craftsman's  love  of  accurate 
detail;  he  could  stand  in  the  middle  of  the  road  with  his 
hands  in  his  pockets,  and  Manon  beside  him.  They  were 
never  tired  of  looking  at  the  house,  the  new  roof  which 
Paul  thought  of  tiling  or  thatching  some  day  over  the  gal- 
vanized iron,  the  windows  with  their  neat  yellow  panels 
of  oiled  linen,  the  front  door  which  Paul  had  painted  a 
gay  green. 

They  were  as  proud  as  a  couple  of  children  over  a  sand 
castle.  And  Brent  had  fought  for  his  castle  and  held  it. 

"Looks  fine,  doesn't  it?" 

And  Manon's  eyes  were  full  of  the  spring. 

In  the  matter  of  the  more  spiritual  things  these  ideals 
count,  and  Paul — that  simple  fellow — kept  his  panache. 
Perhaps  there  are  no  English  words  capable  of  expressing 
the  subtle  personal  pride  of  a  Cyrano  de  Bergerac,  or  the 
emotional  exultation  of  the  chivalrous  soul  that  has  stooped 
to  no  foul  compromise.  Paul  kept  his  panache.  He  had 
never  heard  of  the  word,  but  he  was  the  master  of  all  that 
it  expressed. 

He  was  in  love  with  Manon.     He  looked  love  at  her, 


220  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

but  he  did  not  make  it,  and  Manon  had  the  heart  to  under- 
stand. He  was  one  of  those  natural  gentlemen,  bricklayer, 
shepherd,  fisherman,  what  you  will.  He  had  his  notion  of 
chivalry,  a  chivalry  that  could  give,  wait,  hold  back.  He 
did  not  rush  to  pick  the  flower  and  flaunt  it  in  his  button- 
hole. Such  men  are  laughed  at  by  the  shallow  and  the 
dirty-minded,  but  somehow  they  keep  the  love  of  a  woman. 
You  may  find  them  in  cottages,  villas,  country  houses. 
They  have  escaped  the  curse  of  wanting  to  be  self-con- 
sciously clever. 

Paul  and  Manon  went  to  church  each  Sunday,  and  stood 
for  a  few  minutes  under  the  shattered  roof.  They  were 
not  religious  people  as  religion  was  understood  in  the  Vic- 
torian days.  Their  sacrament  was  a  little  silence,  a  pause, 
a  looking  backwards  and  forwards,  a  holding  of  hands,  a 
gentle  generous  emotion.  They  thought  of  the  dead,  of 
the  children,  of  seed-sowing  and  harvest,  of  good  comrade- 
ship and  the  peace  thereof  that  passeth  understanding. 

Paul  had  his  ideal,  his  task. 

"I'll  ask  her  to  marry  me  when  I  have  made  the  place 
good,"  was  his  thought. 

And  Manon  accepted  this,  even  though  she  might  have 
to  face  little  humiliations  in  the  acceptance.  She  kept  her 
eyes  on  the  man's  broad  ideal.  It  was  a  big  tree  that 
would  grow ;  it  was  strong,  slow,  hardy.  If  casual  tongues 
dropped  a  few  seeds  of  discord,  of  gossip,  they  were  but 
little  bitter  weeds  which  the  tree  would  smother. 

"I  love  him,"  she  said  to  herself. 

And  Paul  loved  her  with  each  nail  he  drove,  each  joist 
he  fitted,  each  barrow-load  he  cleared  from  the  place.  He 
loved  her  in  washing,  in  eating,  in  cutting  wood  for  her 
stove,  in  looking  at  the  white  clouds  sailing  over  the  new 
roof,  when  it  rained,  when  it  blew,  when  the  sun  shone. 
She  was  in  every  corner  of  his  life,  and  he  in  hers. 

Sometimes  he  was  greatly  curious  to  know  what  that 
other  man  of  hers  had  been,  this  Gaston  Latour  who  had 
been  killed  early  in  the  war.  Manon  had  been  married  les? 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  221 

than  a  year.  She  had  a  photo  of  her  first  husband  some- 
where, and  one  evening  Paul  asked  to  see  the  photo. 
Sometimes,  he  had  an  uncomfortable  feeling  that  he  was 
wearing  a  dead  man's  shoes;  he  wondered,  too,  how  he 
was  filling  them. 

Manon  took  a  candle  down  to  the  cellar,  and  brought 
back  the  photo. 

"Gaston  was  a  good  fellow;  we  agreed  quite  well." 

Paul  looked  at  the  man's  picture.  Gaston  Latour  had 
been  one  of  those  sickly  Frenchmen,  cold,  pale  and  promi- 
nent of  eye,  with  a  big  forehead  and  a  weak  beard.  He 
stood  with  his  hands  resting  on  the  back  of  a  chair,  staring 
straight  in  front  of  him. 

Manon  had  been  watching  Paul's  face,  and  with  a  sud- 
den, quick  but  quiet  motion  she  took  the  photograph  away 
from  him.  It  is  possible  that  a  woman  does  not  like  to 
see  her  lover  repelled  by  the  face  of  the  man  who  had  first 
possessed  her. 

"That  was  nearly  five  years  ago,"  she  said;  "and,  if 
you  please,  we  will  forget  it." 

"I'm  sorry,"  Brent  told  her;  "weren't  you ?" 

"It  was  a  very  excellent  marriage ;  our  parents  arranged 
it,  and  my  father  died  six  months  later.  No,  this  house 
always  belonged  to  us,  not  to  the  Latours." 

She  took  the  photo  back  to  the  cellar,  nor  did  she  return 
for  some  minutes,  leaving  Brent  warming  his  hands  at  the 
stove.  She  had  said  so  little,  but  enough  to  make  Paul 
understand  that  her  first  marriage  had  not  been  happy, 
that  it  had  left  no  delicate  roots  behind  it.  If  Brent  was 
guilty  of  a  secret  gladness,  he  hid  it,  but  the  gladness  was 
there.  He  felt  sorry  in  an  impersonal  way  for  that  cold- 
eyed  fellow  who  lay  dead  somewhere  in  France,  but  the 
human  part  of  him  was  with  Manon.  He  hoped  that  it 
would  come  all  fresh  to  her,  as  fresh  and  as  rich  and  as 
generous  as  it  seemed  to  him. 

April  came,  and  it  rained  hard  for  two  days,  driving 
Brent  indoors.  At  dinner  they  sat  and  looked  at  the  roo* 


222  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

watching  for  drips,  and  exulting  when  no  drips  appeared. 
Paul  had  been  fixing  the  floor  of  the  room  above  the 
kitchen. 

"It  is  a  splendid  roof,"  said  Manon;  "it  is  you  who 
rain  sawdust." 

"I  can't  taste  it." 

"Look  in  your  potage.  I  was  away  only  half  a  minute, 
but  you  managed  to  drop  that  wooden  salt  of  yours  into  the 
saucepan." 

Brent  gave  her  an  oblique,  laughing  look. 

"Supposing  we  put  up  the  ceiling.  It  will  be  rather 
like  laying  a  carpet  upside  down." 

"That  canvas  ?" 

"Yes." 

"How  delightful !     But  can  you  do  it  alone  ?" 

"No.     Two  hands  to  stretch  it,  while  the  other  nails." 

"Let's  begin  at  once,"  said  Manon. 

And  that  is  how  Anatole  Durand  found  them,  perched 
up  on  the  joists,  Manon  stretching  the  canvas  while  Paul 
drove  in  the  tacks.  They  were  so  busy  hammering,  talk- 
ing, laughing,  and  the  rain  made  such  a  patter  on  the  iron 
roof  that  they  had  not  heard  his  car.  But  Anatole  Durand 
was  an  event.  He  had  not  happened  for  three  weeks. 

"Hallo,  mes  enfants !" 

Two  faces  looked  down  at  him. 

"Monsieur  Durand!  But  what  do  you  think  of  our 
ceiling?" 

"Magnificent!"  said  Anatole,  and,  in  a  hurry  to  get 
out  a  dramatic  cry  of  his  own,  "And  what  do  you  think  of 
my  American  dump  ?" 

"Comment,  monsieur?" 

"I  have  bought  it,"  he  said,  shining  like  a  little  sun- 
god.  "I  have  bought  my  American  dump!" 

They  had  come  down  after  that,  for  a  canvas  ceiling 
could  not  suppress  such  a  little  excited,  restless  sun. 
Here  was  an  event,  a  sensational  episode  in  the  history  of 
Beaucourt!  Manon  brought  out  her  wine,  and  they  sat 
round  the  table,  and  talked — at  least  Anatole  Durand 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE  223 

talked.  He  opened  his  fat  note-book  on  the  table  and 
began  to  roll  off  figures  with  the  voice  of  a  cure  chanting 
the  mass. 

"Yes,  I  have  bought  it,  but  I  had  to  race  around  like 
a  comet.  Just  listen,  my  friends." 

He  chanted  triumphantly  of  timber  and  iron  sheets  and 
rolls  of  felt  by  the  thousand,  tins  of  preserved  meat,  fruit, 
milk,  salmon  by  the  tens  of  thousand,  coffee  in  hundreds 
of  kilos,  blankets,  tools,  barbed  wire,  buckets,  candles, 
soap.  Wine  and  honey  in  Canaan !  The  oration  was 
Biblical,  exultant. 

"It  must  have  cost  you  a  fortune,  monsieur,"  said 
Manon. 

Durand  would  not  boast  about  the  money  he  spent. 

"Oh,  I  have  plenty  left.  It  is  the  best  bargain  I  have 
ever  made  in  my  life." 

"And  where  is  the  dump,  monsieur?" 

"A  hundred  miles  south  of  Chalons,  perhaps.  But  I 
have  arranged  for  the  hire  of  a  dozen  lorries,  and  we  will 
have  it  here  in  no  time.  Now  see  what  it  is  to  be  thorough. 
I  have  here  the  cubic  space  of  the  dump,  and  the  cubic 
space  of  the  cellars  at  the  chateau,  you  know  what  good 
cellars  they  are,  and  all  the  food  and  the  blankets  can  be 
stored  in  them.  The  timber  and  the  felt  and  the  iron 
sheeting  can  be  stacked  in  the  courtyard." 

"You  are  a  wonderful  man,  Monsieur  Anatole." 

"I'm  just  an  old  boy,"  he  laughed. 

She  poured  him  out  another  glass  of  wine,  and  he  sipped 
it,  looking  round  the  room  with  eyes  of  appreciation. 

"You  two  children  know  how  to  work.  You  are  quite 
chez-vous  here,  already." 

Manon  glanced  questioningly  at  Paul.     Brent  nodded. 

"And  we  are  fiances,  monsieur." 

"Why,  that's  splendid !"  said  old  Durand  holding  up  his 
glass;  "your  very  good  health,  and  good  luck  to  us  all." 

They  drank. 

"And  that  fellow  Louis  Blanc  seems  to  be  out  of  the 
picture.  The  Coq  d'Or  was  full  of  the  gossip." 


224:  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

"Tiens,  what  has  happened  to  Bibi  ?" 

"He  is  in  hospital  at  Amiens,  and  they  have  taken  out 
one  of  his  eyes.  It  is  said,  too,  that  he  may  go  blind  in 
the  other.  When  they  asked  him  to  explain  how  it  hap- 
pened, he  said  he  had  had  a  quarrel  with  some  English 
soldiers,  and  that  three  of  them  set  on  him." 

Paul  and  Manon  exchanged  glances. 

"Shall  I  tell  him  ?"  her  eyes  asked  him. 

Brent  nodded. 

"That  is  not  quite  the  truth,  monsieur.  You  are  our 
friend,  and  you  can  keep  a  secret.  Bibi  came  by  those 
wounds  in  this  very  room." 

"Tonnerre — here  ?" 

Very  simply  she  described  to  Anatole  Durand  all  that 
happened,  and  so  vivid  were  her  words  that  the  old  man 
found  it  difficult  to  sit  still.  His  eyes  lit  up ;  he  had  the 
eyes  of  a  fighter. 

"But  it  is  incredible !  What  a  wild  beast !  You  did 
very  well,  Monsieur  Paul,  to  thrash  that  stallion." 

He  jumped  up  and  clapped  Paul  on  the  shoulder. 

"So  you  wish  me  to  say  nothing  of  this  ?" 

"It  is  not  a  pleasant  tale  for  Manon  to  tell." 

"And  the  fellow  has  got  his  deserts.  I  am  ready  to 
wish  he  may  lose  that  other  eye,  and  be  harmless  for  the 
rest  of  his  life.  But  let  us*  talk  of  something  more 


He  lit  a  cigar,  and,  walking  up  and  down  for  a  moment 
on  his  brisk  legs,  paused  abruptly  in  front  of  Manon. 

"I  have  some  good  news  for  you." 

"You  are  full  of  good  news,  Monsieur  Anatole." 

'Well,  listen.  When  I  was  in  Amiens  I  fell  in  with  a 
gentleman  who  is  planning  excursions  to  the  battlefields. 
He  wanted  to  know  of  a  place  where  the  richer  sort  of 
people  might  be  able  to  spend  the  night,  and  get  the 
atmosphere  of  a  devastated  village.  'My  friend,'  said  I,  'I 
know  the  very  place  in  my  own  village,  a  little  hotel  that 
will  be  ready  to  receive  such  people  in  a  month  or  two.' 
He  jumped.  'It  will  be  very  simple,'  said  I.  'The  sim- 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE  225 

pier  the  better,  my  dear  fellow.  We  want  the  proper 
atmosphere.'  So,  my  dear,  if  the  idea  pleases  you,  I  will 
drive  you  over  to  Amiens  in  a  day  or  two,  and  you  can 
make  arrangements  with  this  gentleman.  It  should  be 
quite  a  prosperous  enterprise." 

Manon  jumped  up  and  kissed  him,  and  Durand  did  not 
appear  to  object.  He  was  a  democrat,  and  the  new  Beau- 
court  was  going  to  be  very  democratic. 

"What  a  good  friend  you  are." 

"I'm  just  an  old  boy,"  said  Durand. 


XXXI 

THAT  evening,  when  the  sky  had  cleared,  Manon  and 
Brent  opened  up  a  hole  under  the  wall  where  Manon's 
treasure  lay  buried,  and  carried  the  silver  into  the  cellar. 
Anatole  was  to  drive  over  again  next  day  and  take  Manon 
to  Amiens  where  she  was  to  meet  the  gentleman  who  was 
promoting  these  pilgrimages  in  Picardy,  and  also  deposit 
her  valuables  with  the  "Societe  Generale."  Paul  was 
shovelling  the  earth  back  into  the  hole  when  Manon  came 
back  along  the  path,  walking  slowly,  and  stroking  a  black 
eyebrow  with  a  meditative  forefinger. 

"Dear  soul,  look!" 

Her  face  flushed  a  sudden  excitement.  There  was  a 
vivacious  buoyancy  in  her  pointing  finger.  Paul  wa* 
head  up  on  the  instant,  ready  for  some  dramatic  event. 

"What  is  it?" 

She  was  pointing  at  the  brown  soil  behind  him,  and  there 
was  a  child's  delight  in  her  eyes. 

"The  little  green  dears  1" 

Paul  turned  and  looked,  one  hand  on  the  handle  of  hia 
spade,  and  he  smiled.  Strung  between  two  of  the  white 
seed  pegs  stretched  a  thread  of  green  thrown  into  vivid 
contrast  by  the  rain-darkened  soil,  nothing  more  nor  less 
than  a  row  of  lettuce  seedlings  just  opening  their  twin 
leaves.  A  string  of  emeralds  would  never  have  seemed  so 
innocent  or  so  precious. 

"The  first  of  our  children,"  said  Brent,  "the  little 
fellows!" 

He  looked  shy,  but  Manon  snuggled  up  and  in  some 
silent  way  made  him  understand  that  her  hand  wanted  to 
be  held. 

"Is  it  not  wonderful?" 

£26 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  227 

"Everything's  wonderful,"  said  Brent,  with  a  glimmer 
Of  blue  between  half-closed  eyelids. 

"Here's  where  we  began,  over  that  hole  in  the  ground. 
Just  because  you  happened  to  catch  me  playing  with  a 
spade.  And  now — a  year  afterwards — these !" 

"Like  a  live  bit  of  ribbon,  isn't  it !" 

"And  a  few  weeks  later  we  shall  be  eating  lettuces!" 

"Mechant !"  she  said.  "Be  serious.  How  do  you  like 
Anatole's  idea?" 

"It's  an  inspiration." 

"Very  well,  we  will  have  supper  early,  and  then  we 
will  sit  down  and  make  plans.  Oh,  I  didn't  tell  you, 
Ifarie  is  giving  me  six  pullets." 

"So  we  shall  sit  down  and  make  plans  for  the  pullets." 

"Be  serious !  No,  we  must  arrange  the  rooms  and  the 
furniture,  and  see  how  much  money  we  can  afford." 

"Oh,  that's  it  ?  Well,  look  here,  I  put  my  money  into 
the  business  or  I  go  on  strike." 

"But,  Paul ' 

His  hand  closed  firmly  on  hers. 

"It's  got  to  be.     I'm  a  man.     Don't  you  understand !" 

She  looked  up  at  him  with  soft,  consenting  eyes. 

"Oh,  yes,  I  understand  perfectly.  But  who  is  to  handle 
the  firm's  money  ?" 

"You,  of  course,"  said  Brent  "I  always  was  an  idiot 
with  money.  I'll  take  my  share,  keep  a  little  pocket 
money,  and  put  the  rest  back  into  the  business." 

"Do  you  understand  pigs?"  she  asked  him  with  quiet 
irrelevancy. 

"I  did  keep  one  once." 

"And  cows?" 

"I  dare  say  I  could  learn  to  milk  a  cow.  I've  studied 
more  difficult  things  than  that." 

With  supper  over,  Manon  cleared  the  table,  lit  two 
candles,  produced  a  writing  pad  and  pencil  from  the  cup- 
board. They  drew  two  chairs  up  on  the  side  of  the  stove, 
and  sat  with  their  heads  close  together,  Manon  sketching 
eut  a  plan  of  the  house.  There  would  be  seven  rooms  in 


228  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE 

all,  four  on  the  ground  floor,  and  three  above,  but  the 
rooms  on  the  other  side  of  the  passage  were  rather  small, 
and  one  of  them  could  only  be  reached  by  passing  through 
an  outer  room. 

"The  visitors  would  have  to  take  their  meals  here  in 
the  kitchen,  unless  we  arranged  to  let  them  use  the  public 
room  on  the  other  side  of  the  passage." 

"English  people  might  not  like  that.  Let  them  sit 
and  see  their  own  food  cooked ;  it  would  amuse  them." 

"I  should  have  to  engage  a  strong  girl  to  help." 

"That  wouldn't  be  difficult,  would  it  ?" 

"I  am  thinking  of  the  bedrooms,"  Manon  said.  "We 
shall  have  only  four,  even  if  we  use  the  little  ground-floor 
room  that  looks  out  on  the  garden." 

She  scribbled  lines  and  crosses  on  the  paper,  frowning  on 
the  problem. 

"Supposing  we  were  to  give  the  girl  that  little  room." 

"Yes." 

"Keep  the  public  room  where  it  is,  and  turn  the  back 
room  into  a  little  salon  for  the  visitors  or  ourselves.  But 
that  would  only  leave  us  one  spare  bedroom." 

She  continued  to  scribble  on  the  paper. 

"When  we  get  married,"  she  began,  "it  will  save  a 
bedroom." 

"Yes,  that's  so,"  and  he  also  looked  at  the  scribbles 
on  the  paper,  scribbles  that  meant  nothing;  "meanwhile 
I  might  rig  myself  up  something  outside,  or  sleep  in  the 
cellar.  But  I  suppose  we  shall  need  the  cellar." 

"We  might  put  a  partition  across  that  room,"  and  she 
pointed  upwards  with  the  pencil;  "but  it  would  be  so 
much  simpler " 

"All  right,"  said  Paul;  "we'll  think  about  it.  Now, 
what  about  furniture  ?" 

They  made  a  list  of  the  furniture  that  would  be  needed, 
Manon  writing  the  name  of  each  article  under  such  head- 
ings ad  "Salon,"  "Girl's  room,"  "Visitors'  room,"  "Our 
room."  The  list  began  to  frighten  them  not  a  little. 

"Hold  on,"  said  Brent ;  "I  can  make  tables,  cupboards^ 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  229 

wash-stands,  if  we  can  get  some  decent  wood.  Bedsteads 
and  bedding  seem  to  be  the  main  problem.  I  expect  the 
prices  are  up  in  Amiens." 

"I  have  about  seventy  thousand  francs.  Sixty  thou- 
sand are  invested  in  Rentes.  That  leaves  ten  thousand 
for  furniture,  and  stock  and  current  expenses." 

"I  can  put  a  thousand  to  that.     Not  much,  is  it?" 

"You  £re  putting  in  more  than  money,  Paul.  It  will 
be  yours  as  well  as  mine.  All  this  could  never  have 
happened  without  you." 

Paul  went  to  bed  with  his  head  full  of  the  new  enter- 
prise, and  the  hundred  and  one  inventions  and  ingenuities 
it  suggested.  He  remembered  having  seen  somewhere  a 
room  decorated  with  arched  trellis-work  painted  a  soft 
green,  the  arches  hung  with  mauve  wistaria  made  out  of 
paper.  Then  his  thoughts  jostled  against  the  problem  of 
"baths."  Would  English  tourists  of  the  richer  sort  expect 
and  demand  baths  ?  Brent's  enthusiasm  could  not  see  it- 
self rising  above  hip-baths  and  one  can  of  water  heated 
up  in  the  corner  of  an  outhouse.  Fuel — like  bedrooms — 
was  going  to  be  precious,  and  Paul  went  to  sleep  thinking 
of  that  particular  bedroom  and  Manon's  simple  solution 
of  the  difficulty. 

"A  good  solution,  too,"  said  Brent;  "but  I'll  stick  out 
till  I  have  finished  the  house." 

Durand's  De  Dion  was  with  them  early,  but  not  so 
early  that  Manon  had  not  been  able  to  help  Paul  finish  the 
canvas  ceiling  of  the  kitchen.  She  was  below  in  the  cellar, 
dressing,  while  Brent  loaded  the  valuables  into  the  car. 

"Any  news  of  Louis  Blanc  ?" 

"Nothing,"  said  Durand.  "By  the  way,  do  you  know 
all  the  wells  in  Beaucourt?" 

"No." 

"Then  I  will  send  old  Prosper  Cordonnier  over  with 
my  sanitary  expert ;  he  knows  them  all." 

"You  are  having  all  the  water  tested  ?" 

"We  should  look  fools   if  it  turned  out  bad, 
Hallo — now,  voila  le  printemps !" 


230          THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

Paul  turned  and  beheld  the  miracle  of  a  French  working 
woman  in  her  Sunday  clothes.  It  was  not  that  he  had 
never  seen  Manon  before  in  that  little  black  chapeau,  black 
velour  costume,  and  those  neat  suede  high-heeled  shoes. 
He  could  remember  her  going  to  church  in  those  same 
clothes  when  he  was  billeted  in  Beaucourt  during  the  war, 
but  now  they  seemed  different.  They  had  a  more  per- 
sonal and  a  more  intimate  meaning  for  him.  ,  He  was 
aware  of  her  small  feet,  of  the  quiet,  sleek  chicness  of  her 
clothes,  of  the  roguish  sedateness  of  that  little  hat.  His 
thoughts  went  back  fifteen  years.  He  was  thinking  of  a 
certain  fair-haired  girl  with  a  razor-edged  nose  and  mouth, 
coming  out  of  the  back  gate  of  a  big  house,  and  wearing 
a  blue  plush  hat  covered  with  red  cherries,  an  electric 
blue  dress  and  the  yellowest  of  yellow  boots. 

"How  you  stare!"  she  said. 

Paul's  thoughts  came  back  from  that  other  life, 

"Monsieur  Durand  used  the  exact  word." 

"And  what  was  that  ?" 

"Printemps;"  and  he  added,  "this  April  seems  to 
belong  to  me — somehow." 

They  drove  off,  and  Brent  went  to  work,  but  the  sun 
was  shining,  and  his  thoughts  got  in  the  way  of  his  hands. 
He  was  so  happy  that  he  seemed  to  pause  and  to  look 
suddenly  at  this  happiness  of  his  with  the  eyes  of  a  man 
who  was  afraid  of  losing  it.  He  had  been  nailing  down 
the  floor  boards  on  the  joists  of  the  upper  room  that  was  to 
be  their  bedroom,  and  this  sudden  inward  questioning  of 
his  own  dreams  sent  him  idling  into  the  sunlight.  He 
crossed  the  street,  sat  down  on  the  doorstep  of  the  stone 
house  over  the  way,  and  looked  with  serious  blue  eyes  at 
the  cafe. 

It  occurred  to  him  again  that  it  would  need  a  sign  and 
that  he  would  paint  it.  But  might  not  the  painting  of 
that  sign  be  about  the  last  piece  of  work  he  would  accom- 
plish in  the  reconstruction  of  the  "home"  ? 
.  He  lingered  over  the  word  "home."  It  was  very  sweet 
to  him  now,  but  would  it  always  be  so  sweet?  Certain 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  231 

panic  thoughts  gathered  round  him  like  officious  and  penny- 
wise  old  women.  He  was  an  Englishman ;  would  he  be 
happy  living  as  a  Frenchman  ?  When  the  house  was 
finished,  every  stick  painted,  and  the  little  farm  without 
a  weed,  might  not  a  sudden  restlessness  seize  him  ?  Would 
he  be  content  to  live  all  his  life  in  a  French  village  ?  That 
other  home  of  his  in  England  had  never  been  a  home  in  any 
spiritual  sense ;  he  could  remember  going  out  one  night  in 
a  miserable  and  lonely  rage  and  throwing  bricks  through  a 
little  greenhouse  that  had  been  his  particular  pride.  But 
surely  this  would  be  different?  Manon  was  different; 
he  was  different.  And  yet,  at  the  bottom  of  this  panic 
mood  was  a  horror  of  hurting  Manon,  of  falling  short  of 
her  some  day  in  the  measure  of  his  happiness. 

"Fudge!"  he  said,  and  got  up  suddenly;  "it's  just  cow- 
ardice, that's  all.  Haven't  I  seen  it  in  the  war,  chaps  who 
were  always  looking  for  things  to  go  wrong?  It's  the 
same  with  the  fellows  who  write  books,  books  in  which 
everybody  gets  into  the  gutter  and  all  the  world's  wrong. 
Just  funk— Hallo  1" 

A  certain  aggressively  smart  figure  had  swung  round 
the  corner,  buttons  and  cap  badge  polished,  chin  shaved, 
puttees  neatly  rolled,  boots  black  and  glossy  as  the  back  of 
a  rook. 

"Cheer-oh,  cove." 

It  was  Corporal  Sweeney  with  the  grey  grouse  out  of 
his  eyes,  a  proper  man,  well  groomed. 

"Bon  jour,  monsieur,  comme  vous  etes  gai  aujourd-hui." 

"Demobbed,  demain,  compris?" 

The  two  men  smiled  at  each  other,  and  Sweeney  cast 
an  eye  over  the  house. 

"Your  dug-out,  what  ?" 

Brent  nodded,  wondering  if  he  might  allow  himself  a 
little  more  English. 

"A  bit  of  all  right.  Blimy!  You've  got  a  roof  and 
winders." 

"Entrez,"  said  Paul,  and  took  him  in  and  gave  him  red 
wine. 


232  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

The  corporal  had  cigarettes;  he  offered  Brent  one,  and 
lay  in  the  arm-chair  and  drank  in  the  goodness  of  life. 

"Wonder  if  you  get  me,  bloke  ?" 

He  had  begun  to  philosophize. 

"Me  for  a  bit  of  garden.  Be  home  in  time  to  get  my 
pertaters  in.  Ever  kep'  pigeons  ?" 

"One  time,  monsieur." 

"Lot  o'  sound  gum  in  pigeons,  and  chickens.  Make 
you  feel  sort  of  homy  on  Sunday  mornings.  Hear  'em 
cooin'  and  cacklin'  and  cluckin'.  Got  any  kids?" 

"Des  enf  ants,  monsieur  ?" 

"Got  it." 

"I  get  married  this  year." 

Corporal  Sweeney  gave  a  wise  grin. 

"Funny  stunt — gettin'  married — but  it's  all  rite ;  yes — 
it's  all  rite.  Used  t'  think  it  was  kind  of  bloomin'  mo- 
not'nous.  Well,  I  dunno.  If  you  start  goin'  round  the 
corner  with  strange  gals,  well,  it's  good-bye  to  the  chickens 
and  the  pertaters.  Besides  it's  a  mug's  game.  Who's 
your  real  pal  ?  She  as  you  have  'eard  tryin'  not  to  scream 
out  when  she's  bearin'  the  kid  you've  given  'er;  she  'oo 
cooks  yer  Sunday  dinner.  T'aint  slosh,  it's  the  truth." 

Paul  smiled.  He  pretended  to  have  picked  some  of 
the  pith  out  of  the  man's  harangue. 

"You  talk  good,  monsieur.  I  tink  I  be  ver'  happee 
here." 

"Course  you'll  be  happy,"  said  the  soldier  almost 
fiercely;  "it's  inside  a  chap,  ain't  it?  'Course  there's 
other  things  that  count.  So  long  as  a  chap  don't  keep 
spittin'  down  his  own  well !  Bein'  happy  is  like  keepin'  yer 
buttons  polished.  It's  a  'abit." 

Brent  could  have  quoted  an  occasion  when  the  cor- 
poral's buttons  were  distinctly  dingy,  but  he  refrained. 
Mark  Tapley  might  have  turned  into  an  average,  decent, 
grumbling  Englishman  had  he  been  stuck  down  at  Harlech 
Dump. 

"  'Ere,  bloke,"  said  the  corporal  before  leaving ;  "what's 
wrong  with  you  having  a  little  more  paint  and  canvas  £05 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  233 

the  'appy  'ome.  I  shall  be  gone  to-morrer.  And  yon 
could  do  with  it." 

Paul  fell.  He  had  a  passion  for  paint,  and  he  reckoned 
that  the  British  Public  still  owed  him  money. 

"Vous  etes  tres  agreable,  monsieur." 

"You  come  along  back  with  me.  I  ain't  'ad  an  eighteen 
pounder  shell  in  my  chicken-' ouse. 


XXXII 

OVER  the  great  wilderness  the  cuckoo  was  calling,  and 
the  blackbirds  sang  deep-throated  in  the  orchards.  Cowslip 
time  had  come  and  gone;  a  richer  season  followed  after, 
with  all  that  wild  world  rushing  into  leaf,  covering  all 
ugliness  with  a  film  of  beauty.  The  old  orchards  were 
white  in  the  narrow  valley  where  the  stream  ran  through 
deep  green  ways;  the  trees  were  snow-trees — rose-edged 
— floating  between  the  mystery  of  the  woods  and  upon  the 
blue  distance  of  the  horizon.  Grass  and  weeds  were 
springing  up  everywhere  in  the  streets,  in  the  ruins  them- 
selves, threading  even  the  rubbish  through  with  emerald 
wire.  There  were  blue-bells  in  the  Bois  du  Eenard  above 
the  chateau,  and  masses  of  yellow  broom  waving  on  the 
uplands. 

Beaucourt  came  to  life  with  the  spring.  Wonderful 
things  had  happened  when  that  droll,  that  little  wizard  of 
an  Anatole  Durand  had  flicked  his  wand  hither  and  thither. 
Dust  had  risen  on  the  roads.  A  string  of  lorries  had  lum- 
bered up  the  street,  and  a  gang  of  men  had  unloaded  stores 
in  the  green-grey  courtyard  of  the  chateau.  The  cellars 
were  full  of  food;  the  yard  itself  stacked  with  timber 
and  iron.  On  the  circle  of  turf  at  the  end  of  the  avenue 
of  chestnuts  stood  a  white  tent  with  a  camp-bed,  a  chest 
of  drawers,  a  table,  a  washing  basin,  a  chair,  Anatole 
Durand's  home.  He  took  his  meals  at  the  Cafe  de  la 
Victoire,  where  Brent's  hands  were  keeping  pace  with  the 
buoyant  rush  of  the  year. 

Men  were  repairing  and  cleaning  the  huts  in  the  field 
on  the  road  to  Rosieres,  and  a  temporary  camp-kitchen 
was  being  improvised.  New  winches  and  buckets  had 
been  fitted  to  the  wells.  A  couple  of  tractors  and  light 
waggons  had  panted  over  the  desert  roads,  and  the  tractors 
234 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  235 

were  at  work,  ploughing  from  dawn  till  dusk.  Great 
•trips  of  brown  soil  waited  for  a  catch-crop.  Old  Anatole 
went  about  with  his  note-book,  like  a  field-marshal  or  a 
parish  priest,  organizing,  organizing. 

Then  came  the  day  when  the  first  batch  of  refugees 
returned.  They  arrived  in  waggons  from  Ste.  Claire  and 
many  other  villages,  with  their  few  possessions  piled  up, 
like  a  convoy  of  settlers  in  the  old  days  travelling  west. 
The  carts  and  waggons  collected  in  the  field  where  the 
huts  stood,  and  with  them  came  Monsieur  Lefebre,  the 
parish  priest.  Anatole  Durand  met  them  in  the  field. 
He  and  Monsieur  Lefebre  kissed  each  other,  the  agnostic 
and  the  Christian. 

There  was  a  hot  meal  ready,  iron  coppers  full  of  good 
gtew;  Manon  was  in  charge  of  the  hut  where  meals  were 
to  be  served.  But  these  peasants  sat  down  on  the  grass 
in  the  open  air  like  pilgrims  on  a  feast  day.  They  laughed 
and  talked.  One  or  two  of  the  women  wept  a  little.  They 
had  left  the  children  behind. 

Durand  and  Monsieur  Lefebre  sat  side  by  side  on  the 
tail  of  a  cart.  They  talked;  they  looked  straight  into 
each  other's  eyes. 

"Do  you  remember,  my  friend,  how  we  used  to  dig- 
agree?" 

The  priest  smiled.  He  had  jocund  black  eyes  in  a  red 
face,  and  he  was  a  good  man,  if  fat. 

"Our  text  is  the  same  to-day.  Go  forth  and  recover 
the  wilderness,  and  comfort  my  children." 

"I  have  a  bed  in  my  tent,"  said  Anatole;  "you  can  use 
it" 

"That  is  brotherly  of  you,  but  I  shall  sleep  with  the 
men." 

Durand  looked  round  at  the  peasants  sitting  on  the 
grass,  and  his  eyes  blessed  them. 

"Monsieur,  I  wish  to  speak  to  these  people  presently. 
I  wish  to  explain  what  I  have  done,  what  I  have  planned 
to  do,  what  we  all  must  do.  You  will  speak  to  them  also. 
What  better  place  than  the  church  1" 


236          THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

"In  the  old  days,  monsieur." 

Durand  shrugged. 

"Life  is  so  big,"  he  said,  "that  we  shall  forget  to  knock 
our  feet  against  the  stones." 

When  the  meal  was  over,  Monsieur  Lefebre  got  up  on 
the  cart  and  told  the  people  to  gather  in  the  church.  His 
jocund  black  eyes  had  always  been  more  persuasive  than 
his  preaching,  and  nobody  grumbled  at  being  asked  to  go 
to  the  church.  Monsieur  Lefebre  was  a  good  fellow;  he 
deserved  his  place  on  the  stage,  and  to  these  peasants 
the  day  had  a  religious  meaning ;  they  were  attending  the 
sacrament  of  the  soil.  Paul  and  Manon  walked  with  the 
crowd,  and  stood  under  the  broken  roof  of  the  church, 
with  the  blue  sky  showing  through  it,  and  grass  sprouting 
through  the  stones  on  the  floor.  Manon  was  looking  at 
many  familiar  faces.  There  were  the  Graviers  who  had 
kept  the  tiny  boucherie  in  the  Rue  de  Bonniere ;  the  Cram- 
pons— Claude  Crampon  pulling  his  long  nose  in  the  same 
odd  way  as  though  to  make  sure  he  had  not  lost  the  end 
of  it;  the  Guiveaux,  Pierre  with  his  huge  flat  butter- 
coloured  moustache,  and  Josephine,  whose  red  hair  was 
always  untidy;  the  Pouparts,  who  had  kept  a  grocery 
shop,  yellow  as  ever.  Old  Lebecq  carried  his  cock's  head 
high  in  the  air,  and  behind  him  his  two  big  daughters 
giggled  together.  Philipon,  who  had  been  a  blacksmith 
as  well  as  a  farmer,  held  his  pretty  little  wife  by  the  arm ; 
his  swarthy  face  was  very  solemn,  and  he  frowned  as 
though  he  wanted  to  get  to  work.  Lacroix  and  his  wife 
and  boy  looked  thin  as  figures  cut  out  of  brown  cardboard. 
Big  Jean  Roger  was  smiling  at  everybody  and  picking  his 
teeth  with  a  red  match.  His  daughter  Lucille  seemed 
rather  sad ;  her  eyes  were  vacant ;  she  had  lost  her  lover  in 
the  war.  There  were  one  or  two  younger  men  who  had  re- 
cently been  demobilized,  and  a  few  strong  boys  who  were 
half  inclined  to  make  a  joke  of  the  whole  affair.  Philipon 
looked  round  at  them  with  his  fiery  eyes  and  a  gleam  of 
teeth  in  his  black  beard. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE  237 

"Shut  up!  The  dead  don't  make  fools  of  themselves 
like  that." 

There  was  no  more  horseplay. 

Monsieur  Lefebre  stood  on  the  steps  of  the  choir.  His 
deep  voice  rolled  out  a  prayer,  and  after  the  prayer  he 
spoke  a  few  simple  words  to  the  people.  He  was  much 
moved ;  his  chin  shook  a  little ;  and  the  people  were  moved 
with  him.  They  had  come  back  to  their  homes  and  their 
fields ;  the  blessed  spring  was  with  them,  the  green  joy  of 
the  year.  They  would  go  out  together,  without  jealousy, 
helping  each  other,  planting  in  this  ruined  village  the  im- 
perishable patience  of  a  victorious  France. 

Lefebre  gave  way  to  old  Durand.  Anatole's  grey  hair 
seemed  to  bristle;  he  looked  straight  at  them  all  with 
shrewd,  smiling  eyes;  his  enthusiasm  had  a  flash  of 
humour. 

"My  friends,  we  used  to  quarrel  a  little.  Perhaps  it 
was  my  fault.  To-day  I  am  happy;  I  feel  that  we  have 
something  better  to  do  than  to  quarrel — work." 

Philipon  gave  a  growl  of  applause. 

"That's  it— work!" 

He  glared  at  the  group  of  youths.     Anatole  went  on. 

"Bien.  It  is  not  my  ground  or  your  ground,  it  is  our 
ground.  It  is  our  Beaucourt.  What  do  you  say?  The 
women  to  the  gardens  and  the  rubbish  heaps,  the  men  to 
the  saw  and  the  hammer  and  the  fields.  But  you  know 
what  to  do.  I  am  an  old  man,  I  am  enjoying  myself;  I 
am  spending  what  I  cannot  take  with  me.  I  do  not  stand 
here  and  crow;  I  want  to  be  just  a  little  old  man  in 
Beaucourt." 

There  were  cries  of  emotion  from  the  little  crowd. 

"We  understand,  monsieur." 

"Without  you  it  could  not  have  happened." 

Durand  made  a  face  as  though  he  were  not  far  from 
tears. 

"That's   it;   we  are  all  Frenchmen   together. 
then,  let  me  explain." 


238          THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

He  Trent  on  to  speak  of  the  stores,  material  and  tools 
that  he  had  collected.  They  were  to  be  divided  equally 
and  as  the  need  arose.  The  tools  and  the  seeds  would 
belong  to  the  village.  He  wanted  a  committee,  a  village 
council  composed  of  both  men  and  women  to  consider 
what  was  fair,  and  to  decide  all  that  should  be  done.  He 
spoke  of  Manon  and  of  Paul,  and  Paul  blushed.  Durand 
called  him  an  expert,  a  practical  builder.  Let  them  go  and 
look  at  the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire  and  see  what  Monsieur  Paul 
Eance  had  accomplished  single-handed,  and  the  sight  would 
cheer  up  any  pessimist.  Monsieur  Ranee  had  offered  to 
give  three  hours  a  day  to  the  community ;  and  to  put  him- 
self at  the  service  of  anyone  who  wanted  advice.  Aa  for 
the  canteen,  well,  Madame  Latour  had  that  in  hand,  but 
she  would  need  women  to  help  her. 

^^ow,  let  us  finish  with  words.  Let  us  choose  our 
council  before  we  break  up.  I  suggest  a  council  of  four 
men  and  two  women." 

"And  a  president,"  said  Philipon. 

"I  propose  Monsieur  Durand  as  president" — this  was 
from  old  Lebecq. 

Anatole  was  elected.  They  chose  Philipon,  Lebecq 
Jean  Roger  and  Monsieur  Lefebre  as  the  men,  Manon 
Latour  and  Madame  Poupart  as  the  women.  The  council 
agreed  to  meet  three  times  a  week  at  eight  in  the  evening, 
and  Monsieur  Lef  dbre  suggested  the  sacristy  of  the  church 
as  their  council-chamber.  A  board  would  be  set  up  in  the 
Place  de  I'Eglise  on  which  the  notices  and  the  decisions 
of  the  council  would  be  posted. 

"Aliens !— to  work,"  said  old  Durand. 

Philipon  echoed  him. 

"To  work.     That's  our  motto." 

In  the  passing  of  half  a  day  the  whole  atmosphere  of 
Beaucourt  had  changed,  and  the  familiar  silence  of  the 
ruins  was  broken  by  the  new  life.  Brent  was  planting 
potatoes  in  the  field  below  the  orchard,  for  Etienne  Cas- 
tener  had  brought  his  plough  over  in  a  cart  and  ploughed 
up  half  the  field  for  them,  and  as  he  dibbled  in  the  seed 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  239 

Brent  could  hear  voices  everywhere.  The  hollow  shell  of 
the  village  echoed  with  them ;  the  place  was  like  a  comb 
full  of  working  bees.  Each  family  had  gone  to  what  had 
been  its  house,  that  brick  ruin  or  shelter  of  timber,  and  for 
a  while  there  had  been  silence.  What  problems,  what 
dicouragement !  Where  and  how  to  begin?  They  had 
been  told  that  Beaucourt  had  been  more  fortunate  than 
the  majority  of  villages — villages  that  had  melted  into 
mere  piles  of  rubbish.  The  little  groups  stood  about, 
staring,  bewildered,  lamenting,  wandering  through  the 
wreckage  and  the  gardens,  standing  on  the  tiled  floors  of 
what  had  been  rooms.  And  in  nearly  all  cases  it  was  the 
woman  whose  instinct  escaped  first  from  that  apathy  of 
staring.  The  housewifely  habit  stirred  in  her.  Perhaps 
she  began  to  clean  her  kitchen  floor,  throwing  old  tins, 
broken  bricks  and  tiles,  rags,  anything,  out  into  the  street. 
That  was  what  Durand  had  advised  them  to  do;  he  had 
planned  to  have  the  rubbish  carted  away  and  dumped  in 
some  field.  Very  soon  the  men  were  at  work  with  the 
women,  each  cleaning  his  particular  shell,  uncovering  his 
kitchen  hearth.  Their  blood  warmed.  Beaucourt  was 
full  of  the  sound  of  voices,  the  clatter  of  tins  and  broken 
tiles.  Figures  appeared  on  the  walls,  or  in  the  spider  web 
of  the  sagging  timber  frames,  scattering  useless  patches  of 
tiling,  or  knocking  down  loose  beams  and  joists.  Beau- 
court  was  at  work.  Anatole  Durand  found  Philipon 
sweating  like  a  swarthy  Hercules  in  his  little  house  in  the 
Rue  du  Chateau,  knocking  down  useless  bits  of  wall  with 
a  big  hammer,  while  his  pretty  wife  carried  off  the  sound 
bricks  and  stacked  them  in  the  yard. 

"Thunder,  but  this  is  life !"  said  the  sweating  peasant ; 
"I'm  happy." 

Manon  was  walking  back  from  the  canteen  when  she 
caught  sight  of  a  little  old  figure  approaching  along  the 
Rue  Romaine.  It  was  none  other  than  Mere  Vitry  dressed 
in  her  rusty  black  Sunday  clothes,  and  carrying  a  shabby 
bag.  She  had  been  left  behind  at  Ste.  Claire  as  too  old 
to  face  the  first  struggle  with  the  wilderness;  but  Mere 


240  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

[Vitry  had  had  no  intention  of  remaining  in  Ste.  Claire, 
and  her  indomitable  legs  had  carried  her  to  Beaucourt. 

Manon  went  to  meet  her,  greatly  touched  by  this  old 
thing's  courage. 

"Mother,  what  are  you  doing  here  ?" 

But  Mere  Vitry  was  in  no  need  of  pity.  She  seemed  to 
be  overflowing  with  the  sap  of  a  renewed  youth ;  her  little 
black  eyes  twinkled ;  her  weather-beaten  face  was  all 
smiles. 

"Here  I  am.  Do  you  think  I  was  going  to  be  left 
behind?" 

Manon  kissed  her. 

"Come  to  my  house.  You  must  want  something  to 
eat." 

"I  had  my  meal  on  the  road,  my  dear.  I  would  not 
quarrel  with  a  cup  of  coffee." 

Manon  took  Mere  Vitry  home  with  her,  and  the  old 
lady  removed  her  cloak  and  bonnet,  and  sat  down  with  an 
air  of  complete  contentment.  Iler  eyes  observed  every- 
thing ;  she  was  the  most  cheerful  soul  in  Beaucourt.  Her 
philosophy  was  touched  with  the  irrepressible  optimism  of 
the  spring. 

Manon  offered  her  her  bed. 

"No,  I  shall  sleep  with  the  others.  They  thought  I 
should  be  a  nuisance,  no  use;  you  shall  see.  I  shall  put 
on  my  old  clothes  here,  my  dear,  and  then  go  and  begin 
tidying  the  house.  It  needs  it." 

It  did.  There  was  but  a  third  of  the  roof  left,  and  no 
windows  and  no  doors,  and  in  the  garden  weeds  and  rub- 
bish competed  with  each  other.  Mere  Vitry  put  on  her  old 
plum-coloured  skirt,  and  black  and  white  check  blouse, 
borrowed  a  broom  and  an  old  spade,  and  marched  off  to 
battle  like  the  true  Frenchwoman  that  she  was. 

Monsieur  Lefebre,  taking  a  parochial  stroll,  found 
Madame  Vitry  sweeping  out  the  rubbish  from  the  tiled 
floors  of  her  kitchen  and  bedroom.  He  stood  and  watched 
her  a  moment,  a  most  human  smile  on  his  generous  face, 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  241 

and  then  that  plump  right  hand  of  his  made  the  sign  of 
the  cross. 

"So  you  are  busy  already,  madame?" 

She  leant  on  the  broom-handle,  thin  hands  clenched, 
black  eyes  bright  with  renewed  youth. 

"One  cannot  be  idle,  monsieur,  when  there  is  so  much 
to  be  done." 

"You  have  walked  from  Ste.  Claire  ?" 

"I  feel  very  well,  monsieur,  very  well  indeed.  To- 
morrow I  am  going  to  work  in  my  garden." 

"Splendid,"  said  the  priest. 

Her  face  lit  up. 

"Come  inside,  Monsieur  Lefebre;  I  have  something  to 
show  you  in  my  garden." 

She  led  him  through  the  house  and  into  the  garden 
where  the  new  growth  of  the  year  was  pushing  up  through 
broken  bricks  and  coils  of  wire,  old  tins,  the  rusty  frame 
of  a  bedstead,  battered  petrol  cans,  barbed  wire,  the  wheel 
of  a  cart.  The  wooden  frame  and  rusting  springs  of  an 
old  box-mattress  lay  across  the  path.  But  Mere  Vitry 
was  looking  at  none  of  this  rubbish.  She  was  pointing 
upwards  and  smiling  at  a  gigantic  apple  tree  whose  limbs 
had  been  shot  away.  The  tree  was  nothing  but  a  torso, 
a  huge,  mutilated  stump,  but  from  one  limb  a  young 
branch  had  grown  out  and  brandished  against  the  blue 
sky  two  little  sprays  of  white  blossom. 

"That  is  fine,  is  it  not,  monsieur?  He  is  holding  up 
his  flag;  he  is  not  beaten." 

She  laughed. 

"Here  we  are  together,  the  old  woman  and  the  old 
tree.  I  flourish  a  broom,  he  waves  a  bit  of  blossom. 
What  do  you  think  of  it,  monsieur?" 

The  priest's  face  was  lit  up  like  the  face  of  a  saint. 

"It  is  France,"  he  said,  "the  very  soul  of  my  country." 


JXJLX1II 

MANON  had  described  to  Paul  Mere  Vitry's  return  to 
Beaucourt,  and  Brent  had  been  so  touched  by  it  that  h« 
went  down  very  early  next  morning  to  the  house  in  th« 
Rue  Romaine.  The  old  fruit  tree  welcomed  him,  throw- 
ing its  white  banner  against  the  flush  of  the  dawn,  and  he 
set  to  work  at  disentangling  the  miscellaneous  rubbish  from 
the  dew-wet  weeds.  He  had  cleared  away  all  the  heavy 
debris  and  made  a  dump  of  it  on  the  cobbled  path  between 
the  cottage  and  the  roadway  when  he  was  surprised  by 
another  enthusiast,  Monsieur  Marcel  Lefdbre. 

"Good  morning,"  said  the  priest;  "it  seems  that  I  am 
a  little  late." 

His  black  eyes  had  a  glitter  of  fun  in  them.  He 
carried  his  cassock  over  his  arm,  appearing  to  the  world 
like  any  good  bourgeois  ready  for  an  hour's  work  in  tb« 
garden. 

"That's  the  worst  of  it." 

Brent  touched  the  pile  of  rubbish  with  the  toe  of  * 
casual  boot. 

"So  you  have  left  me  nothing  to  do  ?" 

"There  is  plenty  left,  monsieur.  I  thought  I  would 
come  down  and  move  the  heavy  stuff  for  the  old  lady." 

"We  are  beginning  very  well  in  Beaucourt,"  said  Le- 
febre,  "very  well  indeed." 

These  two  good  men  stood  for  a  few  minutes  and 
talked.  They  were  friends  from  the  first  smile,  equally 
simple  and  courageous  in  their  outlook  upon  life,  answer- 
ing at  once  to  a  generous  touch  of  the  hand.  Lefebre  had 
the  soul  of  a  peasant,  with  all  its  shrewdness,  its  grasp  of 
the  elemental  facts  that  keep  men  strong  and  wholesome. 
This  return  of  the  people  to  their  homes  and  to  their  soil 
242 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE          243 

was  to  him  a  veritable  sacrament.  He  knew  that  it  is 
good  for  man  to  suck  the  milk  from  the  bosom  of  Mother 
Earth.  In  the  towns  souls  are  hand-fed,  dissociated  from 
the  great  miracle  of  nature.  Lefebre  hated  the  great 
towns.  They  gave  babes  strong  drink,  false  appetites, 
parched  mouths,  the  lust  after  lust.  Men  walked  rest- 
lessly in  the  streets,  men  who  are  envious  and  unhappy 
after  the  long  dulness  of  the  factory  or  the  shop.  They 
had  turned  no  soil,  nor  gone  to  bed  happily  tired. 

"What  can  one  make  of  this  little  house  ?" 

He  was  looking  at  the  patch  of  brown  tiles  and  the  bare 
rafters.  His  face  was  eager,  inquisitive.  Brent  felt  the 
thrill  of  his  humanity. 

"It  could  be  made  quite  strong  again." 

"You  think  so." 

"The  roof  can  be  covered  with  felt,  and  later  it  can 
be  retiled.  A  door  and  some  windows — and  there  you 
are." 

Lefebre  hung  his  cassock  over  the  sill  of  one  of  the 
•mpty  window  spaces. 

"I  will  go  up  to  the  chateau  and  get  a  roll  of  felt. 
Would  you  take  down  those  tiles  ?" 

"It  would  be  better." 

"If  you  could  spare  five  minutes  later  in  the  day  for  a 
little  criticism?" 

"I  may  be  able  to  give  you  a  hand,"  Brent  said. 

Monsieur  Lefebre  went  for  some  tools,  nails  and  a  roll 
of  felt,  and  when  he  returned  to  the  Rue  Romaine  he  found 
Mere  Vitry  standing  in  the  garden  under  the  old  fruit  tree. 
She  was  smiling,  a  child's  wonder  in  her  eyes. 

"Look,  monsieur,  a  miracle !     Someone  has  been  here." 

"A  friend,  perhaps." 

"It  was  you,  monsieur,  who  carried  away  all  that 
rubbish?" 

"No.  But  miracles  happen,  madame,  even  in  these 
days.  There  is  always  the  miracle  of  the  good  man." 

Mere  Vitry  crossed  herself,  and  looked  at  the  roll  of 
felt  under  Monsieur  Lefebre's  arm. 


244          THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

"And  you — you  are  going  to  work,  too,  monsieur  ?" 

Lefebre's  jocund  face  broke  into  creases. 

"I  am  going  to  try  and  put  a  roof  on  your  cottage. 
That  will  be  another  miracle !" 

Manon  had  gone  to  the  canteen  which  she  and  Madame 
Poupart  were  to  manage  with  the  help  of  two  of  the 
older  women.  They  had  had  a  boy  assigned  to  them,  a 
strong  young  rascal  whose  duty  was  to  trundle  the  day's 
provisions  down  from  the  chateau  in  a  hand-truck,  chop 
wood  for  the  stoves,  and  to  make  himself  useful  in  any 
way  that  God  or  Manon  chose  to  order.  He  sulked  the 
first  morning,  having  promised  himself  the  excitement  of 
helping  to  pull  down  some  of  the  ruins. 

"People  who  are  lazy  get  no  dinner." 

He  argued  the  point  with  Manon,  and  it  required  the 
dinner-hour  to  convince  him  that  these  women  were  in 
earnest.  When  the  file  of  men  had  passed  to  the  tables 
with  full  plates,  Master  Jacques  stood  by  the  iron  boiler, 
holding  a  tin  plate  that  was  empty,  and  inviting  Madame 
Poupart  to  use  her  ladle. 

"We  had  to  cut  the  wood,"  said  the  lady,  "to  cook  your 
dinner.  You  refused  to  cut  wood ;  we  give  you  no  dinner." 

The  logic  of  the  thing  was  so  convincing,  and  Madame 
Poupart  so  determined,  that  Jacques  went  out  and 
laboured  to  earn  his  plateful  of  stew. 

Anatole  Durand  and  Brent  spent  the  morning  making 
a  pilgrimage  through  the  village.  They  visited  each  house 
to  which  the  head  of  a  family  had  returned,  Paul  examin- 
ing each  building  and  giving  his  opinion  as  to  what  could 
be  done.  Anatole  stood  by  with  his  inevitable  note-book, 
jotting  down  the  details  of  this  tour  of  inspection,  while 
Brent  and  the  owner  looked  at  walls  and  gables,  sagging 
roofs,  shell-bitten  chimney-stacks  and  questionable  founda- 
tions. Each  problem  differed  a  little  from  the  other ;  each 
house  had  its  own  particular  sickness.  Some  were  dead,  so 
dead  that  there  was  nothing  to  be  suggested  save  that  a 
new  house  or  hut  should  be  built  in  the  yard  or  garden, 
Anatole  made  a  note,  "Try  and  buy  huts."  There 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  245 

'stud  and  plaster  houses  with  the  timber  framing  fairly 
sound;  the  walls  of  these  could  be  replastered  or  covered 
temporarily  with  felt.  There  were  brick  houses  that  a 
little  ingenious  patching  would  put  into  passable  repair. 
There  were  mere  broken  shells  that  needed  building  up 
squarely  before  they  could  carry  the  cap  of  a  roof.  In 
many  cases  a  crumpled  mass  of  tiles  and  rafters  would 
have  to  be  removed  before  the  actual  work  of  recon- 
struction could  be  begun.  'The  old  houses  built  of  the 
chalky  limestone  of  the  district  were  the  most  hopeless 
of  all.  When  such  a  house  had  been  wounded,  it  had 
crumbled,  cracked,  dropped  masses  of  masonry,  dribbled 
loose  stones  out  of  the  wounds,  bled  itself  to  death.  The 
war  had  taught  Brent  to  respect  the  extraordinary  tenacity 
of  good  brickwork.  You  could  square  up  the  ragged  walls, 
fit  a  patch  into  the  holes,  and  the  house  was  as  good  as 
ever. 

Beaucourt  saw  Paul  Brent  as  a  brown  man  with  a 
short,  pointed  beard  and  friendly  blue  eyes.  He  seemed  a 
pleasant  fellow,  capable,  rather  quiet  in  his  speech,  and 
with  an  accent  that  was  vaguely  foreign.  He  was  a 
stranger  and  Beaucourt  kept  a  critical  eye  on  strangers, 
but  Brent  went  so  wholeheartedly  about  his  job  and  was 
so  obviously  a  man  of  his  hands  that  these  peasants  ac- 
cepted him.  They  were  too  busy  to  be  inquisitive.  Brent 
had  sat  up  late  for  many  nights  dragging  out  of  the  dic- 
tionary the  French  for  such  things  as  plaster,  felt,  rafters, 
joists,  mortises,  concrete.  He  had  made  a  list  of  all  the 
technical  words  that  he  could  find,  learnt  the  names  by 
heart,  and  made  Manon  hear  his  lesson. 

"You  ought  to  shout  more,"  she  told  him ;  "you  English 
just  talk  to  yourselves." 

He  looked  at  her  with  the  eyes  of  a  lover. 
"Shall  I  shout  those  dear  words?" 
"You  may  keep  that  soft  voice — for  me." 
She  had  been  a  little  anxious  for  her  man,  knowing 
that  he  had  prepared  himself  to  face  a  possible  ordeal  in 
this  return  of  the  natives.    It  was  not  only  that  he  loved 


246          THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

her  and  that  he  had  come  to  look  on  Beaucourt  as  a  hom«, 
but  he  had  a  man's  horror  of  betraying  himself  and  of 
being  damned  as  something  worse  than  a  fool.  She  knew 
that  he  would  imagine  that  the  humiliation  would  spread 
to  her,  and  she  could  picture  him  packing  his  knapsack 
and  marching  off  into  the  night. 

He  came  back  to  her  in  the  evening  with  the  air  of 
having  spent  a  happy  and  a  human  day.  There  was 
laughter  in  his  mood,  not  the  laughter  of  ridicule,  but 
laughter  that  had  felt  the  pathos  and  beauty  of  the  thing 
that  had  inspired  it.  He  had  been  down  to  Mere  Vitry's 
cottage,  and  had  discovered  Monsieur  Lef&bre  on  the  roof, 
a  sprawling,  enthusiastic,  happy  figure  with  a  distinct 
celestial  shininess  about  the  broad  seat  of  its  breeches 
Monsieur  Lefebre  was  stripping  the  roof  of  its  remaining 
tiles  and  lowering  them  carefully  in  an  old  bucket  with  a 
bit  of  wire  fastened  to  the  handle.  MeTe  Vitry  stood  b«- 
low,  unloaded  the  bucket,  and  packed  the  tiles  away  in 
a  corner.  They  were  as  absorbed  as  two  children  play- 
ing a  game. 

"It  has  been  a  great  day,"  said  Paul;  "I  don't  seem 
to  have  puzzled  anybody.  And  the  way  these  peopl» 
work " 

He  sat  down  in  the  arm-chair  and  watched  Manon. 
laying  the  table.  She  was  very  good  to  watch,  and  every 
now  and  again  her  eyes  gave  him  the  glimmer  of  light 
that  a  woman  gives  to  her  lover. 

"Let  him  pass — Paul  Eance,  a  good  Frenchman." 

"I  believe  I  shall  pass,"  he  said.  "I  like  your  people. 
They  smell  of  the  soil." 

She  balanced  a  fork,  pointing  it  at  him. 

"And  remember,  they  will  like  you.  You  see,  you  ar« 
such  a  good  fellow,  and " 

He  sprang  up  suddenly  and  caught  her,  and  holding 
her  face  between  his  hands,  looked  long  and  steadily 
into  her  eyes. 

"Yes,  you  are  just  my  life.     I  had  to  fight  for  yom, 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUEE  247 

didn't  I  ?  But  I  have  been  afraid,  ma  cherie,  that  these 
people  might  not  want  me  here.  I  might  be  found  out." 

"Do  not  run  to  meet  troubles,"  she  said;  "you  will 
have  very  good  friends  in  Beaucourt.  Besides " 

She  clasped  his  wrists  for  a  moment  with  her  two 
hands,  and  then  moved  gently  away  to  lift  a  boiling 
kettle  from  the  stove. 

"Let  us  look  at  the  house — afterwards,  at  everything." 

He  stood  watching  her  devoutly. 

"It's  so  good  that  sometimes  I  am  afraid." 

"What  is  there  to  fear  in  Beaucourt?" 

"I  don't  know,"  he  said. 

When  the  meal  was  over  they  walked  out  into  the 
garden  and  looked  at  the  green  crops,  those  rows  of  beang 
and  peas  and  lettuces  paraded  so  exactly  on  the  clean 
brown  soil.  The  holes  in  the  wall  had  been  filled  in ;  the 
fruit  bushes  were  covered  with  a  film  of  green,  and  the 
pollarded  limes  showed  a  thousand  emerald  tips.  From 
the  garden  they  passed  to  the  orchard,  and  Brent  stood 
a  moment  by  Beckett's  grave.  He  had  put  a  white 
wooden  cross  there,  but  he  had  never  been  able  to  per- 
•uade  himself  to  paint  up  the  lie  of  his  own  name. 

M  anon  drew  him  away. 

"Now  we  will  look  at  the  house." 

They  went  over  it  as  though  they  had  not  seen  the  Cafe" 
de  la  Victoire  for  three  months.  It  still  remained  a 
perennial  wonder  to  them,  something  of  a  miracle,  a  thing 
that  grew  and  fed  upon  the  labour  of  their  hands.  Al- 
ready it  had  an  atmosphere,  the  human  friendliness  of  a 
place  that  is  lived  in.  It  was  ready  to  be  the  secret  home 
of  their  love  and  their  memories. 

Brent  had  put  up  a  simple  staircase  to  the  upper 
rooms.  They  were  still  open  to  the  bare  rafters  of  the 
roof,  but  Harlech  Dump  had  provided  canvas  for  the  ceil- 
ings, and  all  the  floors  were  complete,  save  the  floor  of  the 
back  room  on  the  right.  Brent  had  used  up  all  the  wood 
that  he  had  salved  from  the  army  huts. 


248          THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

Manon  was  dreaming  the  dreams  of  a  housewife.  She 
stood  in  the  middle  of  the  room  that  was  to  be  hers  and 
Brent's,  her  back  to  the  window,  her  thoughts  busy  with 
furniture,  curtains,  linen.  In  a  week  or  two  she  would  be 
able  to  go  to  Amiens  and  buy  furniture  for  the  new  home. 
She  looked  at  Paul. 

"Come  and  hold  my  hand." 

"What  is  the  problem  ?" 

"I'm  thinking.  We  will  have  the  bed  there,  and  a  big 
cupboard  against  the  north  wall,  and  another  cupboard 
with  shelves  in  that  corner.  I  should  like  one  or  two 
bright-coloured  mats." 

"A  little  colour  is  good,"  said  Brent. 

His  left  arm  went  across  her  shoulders,  and  they  stood 
silent,  thinking. 

"There  is  only  the  floor  of  that  room,  and  the 
ceilings " 

"And  then?" 

She  looked  up  at  him,  and  her  dark  eyes  were  in- 
tense. 

"Promise  me,  you  will  never  run  away." 

"Run  away  ?"  ' 

"Yes,  don't  you  understand  ?  This  is  going  to  be  ours, 
whatever  happens.  Besides,  what  is  there  that  could 
happen  ?" 

Paul  kissed  her. 

"I  almost  wish "  he  said. 

"What  do  you  wish  ?" 

"That  the  village  knew  everything — that  it  could  judge 
me  as  an  Englishman  who  had  made  a  mess  of  life  in  his 
own  country." 

She  held  his  arms. 

"Mon  cheri,  perhaps,  some  day,  we  will  tell  them,  but 
of  what  have  you  to  be  ashamed  ?  Let  us  win  them  first. 
How  I  wish  we  had  wood  for  that  floor." 

Brent  held  her  close. 

"Yes,  that  was  my  promise.  Do  you  think  it  is  easy 
for  me  to  hold  out  ? — and  yet,  I'm  going  to  hold  out  for 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE  249 

six  months.  I'll  win  Beaucourt  before  I  ask  you  to  marry 
me." 

She  stroked  his  cheek. 

"What  spurs  you  wear  on  your  conscience!  Am  I  to 
agree  ?  Well,  what  can  a  woman  do  ?  Who's  that  ?" 

Someone  had  entered  the  house.  It  was  Anatole  Durand, 
an  Anatole  who  wanted  to  gossip,  and  he  stood  at  the 
foot  of  the  staircase,  looking  up. 

"Hallo!" 

"Won't  you  come  and  look,  monsieur  ?" 

He  climbed  up  on  his  brisk  legs,  amused,  smiling. 

"Talking  over  the  furniture,  hey  ?" 

"There  is  one  room  that  needs  a  floor,  and  we  have  no 
more  wood." 

"Wood — wood?     Why,  I'll  give  it  you." 

"But  we  have  had  more  than  our  share  in  taking  the 
wood  from  those  huts." 

"Tiens,"  said  old  Durand,  "isn't  an  old  man  allowed 
to  be  silly  now  and  again?  One  can't  help  having 
favourites,  you  know." 


XXXIV 

THERE  were  two  very  happy  men  in  Beaucourt  during 
that  miraculous  spring,  Anatole  Durand  and  Marcel 
Lefebre. 

Things  went  well,  amazingly  well.  There  were  no 
quarrels,  very  little  jealousy,  and  no  slacking.  At  the  end 
of  the  first  month  more  than  half  the  people  were  out  of 
the  huts  and  back  in  their  own  houses,  and  though  the 
roofs  were  of  black  felt  and  the  windows  of  canvas,  the 
critical  period  had  passed.  The  Philipons  had  sent  for 
their  children ;  so  had  many  others.  Mere  Vitry  was  back 
in  her  cottage,  with  the  picture  of  the  Sacre  Coeur  hang- 
ing on  its  nail,  and  in  her  garden  were  crops  of  lettuce, 
spring  cabbage,  peas,  beetroot,  potatoes.  There  were  days 
when  the  whole  village  went  out  into  the  fields,  with  Mon- 
sieur Lefebre  heading  the  pilgrimage,  and  the  seed-sowing 
was  a  public  sacrament.  Durand's  tractors  had  ploughed 
up  hundreds  of  acres,  and  though  the  season  was  too  late 
for  wheat,  these  peasants,  labouring  from  dawn  to  dusk, 
seeded  those  great  brown,  fields  with  beans,  potatoes, 
cabbage,  beetroot,  turnips,  peas  and  swedes.  The  luck  of 
the  season  was  with  them.  It  was  sunny  and  dry,  and 
the  battle  was  with  the  weeds.  A  hundred  hoes  and  a 
blazing  sun  fought  and  suppressed  grass  and  charlock, 
dock,  nettle,  sorrel,  buttercup  and  poppy. 

The  orchards  had  only  missed  one  year's  pruning,  and 
promised  well.  Even  flower  seeds  had  not  been  forgotten. 
Manon  was  to  have  beds  of  mignonette,  marigold,  Virginia 
stock,  red  linum,  gaudy  nasturtiums.  There  were  buds 
on  the  old  rose  trees,  and  Paul  had  done  some  pruning. 
The  Bois  du  Eenard  was  in  full  leaf,  and  the  chateau  chest- 
nuts had  had  a  wonderful  display  of  white  wax  candles. 
250 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  251 

The  white  thorn,  too,  had  looked  like  snow.  Old  Durand 
had  had  lilac  in  bloom,  and  he  had  sent  Manon  a  mass  of 
it  for  the  big  bowl  in  the  window.  Paul  had  found  her 
burying  her  face  in  the  blossom,  and  he  had  caught  her 
in  his  arms  and  kissed  her. 

"You  smell  like  the  spring." 

She  had  ruffled  his  hair  with  her  hands. 

The  village  continued  to  take  its  principal  meals  at  the 
canteen,  for  this  public  kitchen  saved  time,  labour  and 
fuel,  and  allowed  the  women  to  spend  the  whole  day  about 
their  houses  or  in  the  gardens  and  fields.  Other  families 
were  returning,  and,  to  relieve  the  congestion  in  the  huts, 
some  of  the  people  who  were  more  forward  in  their  houses 
arranged  to  do  their  own  cooking  and  to  eat  their  meals 
there.  The  ecole  was  turned  into  an  additional  rest- 
house  for  the  new-comers;  they  took  their  share  of  the 
work,  food  and  material;  the  Council  of  Beaucourt  ad- 
ministered a  patriarchal  justice.  There  were  no  gendarmes 
in  the  village. 

Civilization  began  to  re-erect  its  old  landmarks,  and 
Beaucourt  made  quite  a  jest  of  the  new  post  office  when 
Madame  Bonpoint,  who  was  very  fat  and  very  red  and  a 
little  severe,  made  Beaucourt  think  of  a  broody  hen  sitting 
on  a  clutch  of  eggs  in  a  coop. 

Pierre  Poirel,  the  village  farceur,  put  his  head  inside 
her  doorway  and  crowed  like  a  cock. 

"Comment  ?"  said  the  lady. 

"Are  the  letters  hatched  yet,  madame  ?" 

It  was  Pierre  Poirel,  too,  who  scrawled  on  the  doorway 
of  his  eccentric-looking  cottage,  "Villa  des  Nouveaux 
Eiches."  And  all  Beaucourt  laughed  at  the  joke.  The 
village  had  recovered  its  sense  of  humour,  which  was  an 
excellent  symptom,  for  a  community  that  can  work  hard 
and  laugh  has  no  social  sickness  to  fear. 

Durand  restarted  a  carrier's  service  between  Amiens 
and  Beaucourt,  and  three  times  a  week  a  carrier's  cart  left 
the  Place  Vogel,  carrying  passengers  and  parcels.  Beau- 
court  used  to  take  its  relaxation  in  an  evening  gossip  on 


252          THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

\ 

the  Place  de  1'Eglise,  about  the  time  the  carrier's  cart 
rolled  in.  Anatole  would  be  there,  Monsieur  Lefebre,,  the 
patriarchs,  the  women.  You  could  buy  Le  Petit  Journal 
or  the  Echo  de  Paris.  For  a  few  sous,  too,  you  could 
get  a  good  cup  of  coffee  at  the  house  of  Manon  Latour, 
and  ask  the  advice  of  that  fine  fellow,  Paul  Ranee. 

Paul  was  growing  popular.  His  day  was  full  from 
dawn  to  dusk,  and  when  he  was  not  working  at  the  cafe 
or  in  the  garden,  he  was  helping  some  villager  with  his 
house.  Paul  tackled  all  sorts  of  problems.  He  rescued 
derelict  roofs,  underpinned  dangerous  walls,  patched 
broken  chimneys.  Manon' 3  man  was  a  good  fellow,  a 
much  better  fellow  than  the  rather  querulous  and  thin 
bearded  Gaston  who  had  been  Manon's  first  husband,  and 
Beaucourt  approved  of  the  betrothal.  It  accepted  Paul. 
He  could  use  his  hands. 

Brent  had  a  share  in  preparing  one  of  the  great  sensa- 
tions, Beaucourt's  first  shop.  The  enterprise  was  Madame 
Poupart's.  Paul  built  the  shelves,  the  counter,  the  window 
stage,  and,  since  the  venture  was  a  private  one,  he  was 
paid  good  money  for  the  work.  He  took  the  notes  home 
and  handed  them  to  Manon. 

"Put  them  in  the  partnership  bank." 

He  was  very  happy  over  that  money,  and  Manon  was 
happy  with  him. 

Few  people  could  get  near  Madame  Poupart's  shop 
when  first  it  was  opened.  The  window  was  only  six  feet 
square,  and  you  had  to  push  hard  to  obtain  a  glimpse  of 
it.  Not  that  Beaucourt  was  in  mad  haste  to  spend  its 
money,  or  to  buy  the  cheap  pipes,  sweets,  picture  postcards, 
reels  of  cotton,  brown  crockery,  matches  or  lead  pencils 
that  were  arranged  in  the  shop-window.  It  was  the  fact 
that  Beaucourt  had  a  shop.  People  crowded  like  children 
to  stare  at  it. 

Animals  began  to  arrive  and  they  could  not  have  created 
more  interest  if  they  had  walked  out  of  the  Ark.  The 
Philipons  had  a  brown  cow;  Monsieur  Talmas,  the  mes- 
senger, kept  two  horses;  the  Lebecques  had  a  pig,  but  the 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  253 

idea  of  keeping  a  pig  was  soon  plagiarized  by  other 
people.  Hens  clucked  and  scratched,  and  cocks  crowed. 
Someone  gave  Mere  Vitry  a  cat. 

Nor  was  the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire  without  its  live-stock, 
and  Philosophe — a  very  useful  beast — soon  had  to  acknowl- 
edge rivals.  Etienne's  blue  cart  arrived  from  Ste.  Claire, 
carrying  a  calf  secured  under  a  net,  a  coopful  of  young 
chickens,  and  Marie  Castener  in  her  Sunday  clothes. 
Etienne  and  Paul  were  left  to  man-handle  the  calf,  while 
Marie  stumped  all  over  the  house,  making  Paul's  new 
floors  shake,  and  talking  as  she  had  not  talked  for  years. 
She  kissed  Manon  in  nearly  every  room  as  though  she 
were  sealing  a  blessing,  quite  forgetting  that  she  never 
could  abide  people  who  were  impulsive  and  sentimental. 

"And  when  are  you  going  to  be  married  ?" 

"Very  soon,  my  dear ;  in  three  or  four  months,  perhaps." 

"  Three  or  four  months !  What  are  you  waiting  for  ? 
If  I  were  that  fellow  Paul  I  should  not  be  able  to  keep 
my  hands  off  you." 

"He  is  a  very  good  fellow^"  said  Manon,  "and  very 
patient." 

"Patient!  A  man  ought  not  to  be  patient.  Talking 
of  bad  men,  have  you  heard  the  news  about  Bibi  ?" 

Manon's  face  hardened. 

"No.    What  is  it?" 

"He's  blind — stone  blind.  They  had  to  cut  out  one 
eye,  and  the  other  got  affected.  A  man  like  that  quarrels 
once  too  often ;  those  English  soldiers  cut  him  to  pieces." 

Manon  paused  on  the  stairs. 

"Be  careful;  they  are  rather  steep.  Did  they  ever 
catch  those  Tommies?" 

"No." 

"And  what  is  Bibi  doing  ?" 

"Living  at  the  Coq  d'Or.  They  say  there  is  something 
between  him  and  that  girl  Barbe.  She'll  keep  him  in 
order,  if  any  woman  can  do  it.  I  suppose  he  has  some 
money." 

When  the  Casteners  had  gone  Manon  told  Paul  thtf 


254:          THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

news  about  Louis  Blanc.  They  were  leaning  over  the 
stable  door,  and  the  calf  was  sucking  Manon's  fingers,  a 
protest  against  its  weaning. 

"Poor  devil!"  said  Brent,  "I  would  rather  be  dead. 
I  never  thought " 

"I  can't  pity  him,"  she  answered;  "I  suppose  I  ought 
to,  but  I  can't.  I  wonder  if  he  will  come  back  to  Beau- 
court?" 

"What  could  a  blind  man  do  here  ?" 

''Make  mischief.  I  hope  he  will  stay  where  he  is; 
there  would  be  something  horrible  about  a  blind  man 
crawling  about  the  village.  Be  careful,  ma  petite,  do  you 
want  to  eat  my  hand  ?" 

Brent  leant  over  and  rubbed  the  calf's  head,  and  the 
little  beast's  sapphire  blue  eyes  looked  up  at  them  without 
fear. 

"This  thing  is  tame  enough." 

"Etienne's  beasts  are  always  tame.  Yes,  you  have 
beautiful  eyes,  my  dear." 

And  though  they  did  not  confess  it  to  each  other  the 
thought  of  Bibi  blind  and  helpless  haunted  them  all  that 
night. 

The  working  days  slipped  by,  and  in  his  white  tent  at 
the  end  of  the  avenue  of  chestnuts  old  Durand  slept  the 
sleep  of  a  healthy  tired  child.  He  was  irrepressible  and 
he  was  happy,  up  soon  after  dawn  each  morning,  and  shav- 
ing in  the  doorway  of  his  tent  before  rushing  down  into  the 
village  to  begin  another  day  of  creation  and  adventure. 
Marcel  Lefebre  was  his  partner  in  this  early  morning  en- 
thusiasm. Lefebre  slept  on  an  old  wire  bed  in  the  sacristy. 
Everybody  knew  that  he  spent  the  first  two  hours  of  the 
day  working  in  the  church,  clearing  out  the  rubbish, 
scraping  the  floor,  and  daubing  whitewash  over  the  banali- 
ties and  blasphemies  that  casual  hands  had  scribbled  on 
the  walls.  The  "flip-flop"  of  that  brush  and  the  priest's 
splashed  face  were  a  rallying  cry  and  an  ensign  to  Beau- 
court.  The  whole  village  gathered  in  the  church  for  Sun- 
day morning  mass.  The  peasants  came  because  they  liked 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  255 

Lefebre  and  because  the  service  seemed  to  be  a  sort  of 
social  sacrament,  a  very  human  hour  when  they  stood  in 
silence  side  by  side,  and  felt  the  humanity  in  each  other. 
The  dead  were  there,  and  the  children.  And  there  were 
those,  Philipon  among  them,  who  had  called  the  mass  a 
mummery  and  a  swindle,  but  who  came  to  the  church  be- 
cause Marcel  Lefebre's  religion  grew  in  the  soil.  Even 
these  children  of  reason  felt  that  it  was  good  to  gather 
together  and  to  drink  of  the  cup  of  common  humanity. 

Beaucourt  was  happy,  rather  proud  of  itself  and  ready 
to  echo  old  Durand's  cry  of  "Ca  ira,  c,a  ira."  There  was 
a  competitive  spirit  in  the  air,  a  spirit  that  was  good  for 
Beaucourt  and  for  France.  People  asked  each  other, 
"What  are  they  doing  in  Peronne,  in  Domart,  in  Caix,  in 
Roye,  up  in  the  North?  We  can  show  them  something 
here.  It  grows,  it  blossoms."  Beaucourt  had  some  little 
reason  to  be  proud  of  its  work. 

Yet  there  was  a  shadow.  It  arrived  suddenly  and  un- 
expectedly, and  it  was  cast  by  a  man.  Nobody  save 
J)urand  and  Lefebre  imagined  that  there  was  anything 
sinister  about  the  shadow  or  felt  that  any  new  thing  had 
arrived  in  Beaucourt.  What  did  a  little  fat  man  signify,  a 
manufacturer,  a  fellow  who  had  been  known  as  the  "Ele- 
phant" because  he  had  a  nose  like  a  trunk  and  trousers 
that  made  one  think  of  an  elephant's  legs?  M.  George 
Goblet  was  just  a  coarse  little  man  whose  life  had  been 
given  to  the  making  of  money.  In  the  old  days  the  factory 
had  seemed  good  for  Beaucourt;  some  of  the  girls  and 
women  had  worked  there,  and  nothing  terrible  had  hap- 
pened. The  peasant,  not  the  ouvrier,  had  dominated  the 
village. 

Monsieur  George  arrived  in  a  car.  Durand  met  him 
walking  down  the  Rue  de  Bonniere  with  Marcel  Lefebre, 
and  Lefebre  had  the  look  of  a  man  whose  dinner  had  not 
agreed  with  him. 

"What,  you  back!"  said  Durand,  with  a  quick  glance 
at  the  priest. 

Monsieur  George  had  lunched  in  his  car  on  chicken 


256  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

and  a  bottle  of  Chateau  Citron.  He  smoked.  He  was 
cheerful ;  his  face  looked  red  and  beneficent,  but  Marcel 
Lefebre — the  Christian— wished  him  in  hell. 

"Monsieur  Goblet  is  restarting  the  factory." 

"Tiens,"  said  Durand ;  "he  will  have  to  bring  his  own 
workpeople;  we  are  too  busy  here." 

Monsieur  George  smiled. 

"Enterprise,  my  dear  sirs.  I  am  going  to  get  the 
place  tidy.  Men  do  not  grow  on  currant  bushes  these 
days,  but  I  have  been  in  Paris  and  elsewhere." 

"Riff-raff,"  said  Anatole  aggressively. 

The  "Elephant"  looked  at  him  suspiciously  with  his 
little  eye.  He  had  never  been  able  to  understand  Durand ; 
he  thought  him  a  fool.  And,  of  course,  they  disliked  each 
other.  It  would  never  have  occurred  to  Goblet  that  these 
two  men  had  an  affection  for  Beaucourt,  an  affection  that 
resembled  the  love  of  an  old  man  for  a  daughter,  and  that 
they  suspected  him  of  being  ready  to  debauch  her  in- 
nocence. 

Goblet  was  a  man  of  platitudes. 

"France  has  to  get  to  work.  There  is  going  to  be  a 
race  for  trade." 

"Trade  ?  Of  course.  One  is  apt  to  forget  these  things. 
We  have  got  to  fill  the  shop-windows  so  that  silly  women 
may  spend  money." 

"I  make  cloth,  Monsieur  Lefebre.  That  is  one  of 
life's  necessities,  is  it  not,  or  would  you  rather  have  the 
women  running  about  naked  in  the  fields  ?" 

"You  are  unanswerable,  monsieur." 

Anatole  edged  Lefebre  gently  out  of  the  conversation, 
for  M.  Marcel  had  a  hot  temper  and  a  way  of  losing  it 
with  righteous  sincerity. 

"Monsieur  George  has  been  reading  'Penguin  Island,' 
ha,  ha !  He  is  right ;  we  cannot  have  our  villages  full 
of  naked  angels.  But  where  are  you  going  to  put  your 
workmen  ?" 

"Tents  or  huts." 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  257 

"And  feed  them?  We  have  our  own  organization, 
but  we  can't  feed  your  fellows." 

"I  have  not  asked  you  to,  have  I  ?  I  did  not  start 
business  yesterday;  I  have  my  scheme  just  as  you  have 
yours." 

"And  you  have  managed  to  buy  machinery  ?" 

"Should  I  go  out  without  my  trousers  ?" 

Anatole  and  the  priest  left  the  "Elephant"  standing 
coarsely  on  his  dignity  outside  the  gate  of  the  factory. 
They  walked  back  arm  in  arm  to  the  Place  de  1'Eglise. 

"My  dear  friend,"  said  Durand,  "M.  George  is  behaving 
like  a  reasonable  and  enterprising  citizen.  What  good 
will  it  do  to  us  or  Beaucourt  to  quarrel  with  him  ?  I  think 
we  are  in  danger  of  becoming  a  couple  of  sentimen- 
talists." 

"God  forgive  the  reasonable  people,"  said  Monsieur 
Lefebre.  "It  was  the  devilry  of  common-sense  that  killed 
the  child  in  man." 


XXXV 

EABLY  in  June,  the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire  being  ready  for 
its  furniture,  Manon  made  her  great  expedition  to  Amiens. 
The  canvas  ceilings  were  up,  all  the  timber-work  stained 
or  painted,  and  Paul  had  papered  the  walls  of  the  kitchen, 
the  two  best  bedrooms,  and  the  coffee  room.  Manon  had 
chosen  a  pattern  of  pink  roses  for  her  room ;  the  windows 
were  to  have  rose-coloured  curtains,  and  the  bed  a  rose- 
ooloured  duvet;  Paul  had  stained  the  floor  the  colour  of 
old  oak. 

They  left  Philipon's  girl,  Luce,  in  charge  of  the  house, 
and  travelled  to  Amiens  in  the  carrier's  cart,  sitting  on  the 
wooden  bench  behind  M.  Talmas,  and  under  the  black 
canvas  cover  that  had  a  little  window  on  either  side. 
Manon  had  a  carpet-bag  at  her  feet ;  she  was  to  stay  three 
or  four  days.  Paul  carried  his  travelling  gear  wrapped 
up  in  a  black  and  white  check  handkerchief;  he  wore  his 
velvet  trousers  and  black  coat.  There  was  no  one  else  in 
the  carrier's  cart,  and  as  its  grey-blue  wheels  rolled  slowly 
along  the  straight  roads  under  the  poplars,  beeches,  limes 
and  acacias,  Paul  felt  himself  back  in  some  ancient  bit  of 
England.  M.  Talmas'  van  would  have  found  country 
cousins  in  the  Weald  of  Sussex  or  among  the  Somersetshire 
orchards.  Caesar  Talmas,  too,  was  a  bit  of  old  France, 
with  the  head  of  a  grenadier,  a  tuft  of  grey  hair  on  his 
chin,  and  his  eyes  as  blue  as  his  breeches. 

This  cart  dropped  them  at  the  Place  Vogel,  and  they 
walked  to  the  Rue  Belu,  Paul  carrying  Manon's  bag. 
Across  the  green-black  water  of  the  river,  and  with  its 
windows  looking  at  the  chestnut  trees  and  in  the  inspired 
grey  glory  of  the  cathedral,  stood  the  Auberge  de  1'Eveque, 
a  tall,  old,  white  house  with  yellow  shutters,  a  rust-red 
258 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  259 

gate  and  door.  Manon  knew  the  place.  It  was  clean 
and  quiet,  and  she  had  written  to  retain  two  bedrooms. 

They  stood  on  the  bridge  for  a  moment,  and  looked 
at  the  cathedral. 

"When  we  have  left  our  luggage,"  said  Manon,  "we 
will  go  in  and  say  our  prayers." 

Madame  Berthier  of  the  Auberge  de  1'Eveque,  one  of 
those  crisp,  firm-fleshed  Frenchwomen,  with  a  ruddy  face 
and  fair  hair,  met  them  like  an  old  friend.  Manon  had  a 
bedroom  on  the  first  floor;  Paul  a  little  room  under  the 
roof.  Madame  Berthier  gave  them  coffee,  and  chattered 
to  Manon  about  prices. 

"The  cheap  shops  are  not  always  the  cheapest,"  waff 
her  dictum. 

Manon  agreed. 

"If  you  mean  to  live  with  the  same  furniture  all  your 
life,  why  not  have  it  good  to  look  at  ?" 

"Like  your  wife,"  said  madame  with  a  roguish  look 
at  Paul. 

"Yes,  that's  so,  madame.  I  find  that  she  is  very  plea&- 
ant  to  look  at." 

"Thank  you,  mon  ami.  Are  you  coming  out  with  me 
to  the  shops  ?" 

"Of  course." 

"Then  put  on  your  hat." 

It  was  a  showery  day,  but  that  did  not  trouble  themr 
for  whenever  the  rain  began  to  fall  Manon  found  a  shop 
in  which  she  wished  to  enquire  the  prices.  She  was  in  no 
hurry,  and  they  had  explored  all  the  streets  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  the  Hotel  de  Ville  before  Manon  made  her 
choice.  She  bought  her  furniture  at  a  shop  in  the  Rue 
des  Chaudronnieres,  cupboards,  chairs,  wash-hand  stands 
fitted  with  drawers,  a  big  French  bed. 

They  had  hesitated  over  that  bed,  and  the  shopkeeper 
and  his  wife  joined  in  a  debate  that  became  a  sort  of 
family  discussion.  Manon  could  buy  an  iron  bedstead  of 
the  English  pattern,  with  a  mattress  and  pillows  for  four 
hundred  and  ninety-five  francs,  but  the  French  wooden  bed 


260  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

looked  handsome  and  more  homely.  It  would  cost  them 
six  hundred  francs. 

"What  do  you  think?" 

She  looked  at  Paul. 

"I  like  the  wooden  one." 

"It  is  a  beautiful  bed,  madame,  and  the  box-mattress 
is  our  very  best." 

"Why  copy  the  English  ?"  said  the  proprietor.  "Think 
of  the  price  they  are  charging  us  for  coal." 

"An  iron  bedstead  looks  rather  cold  in  a  room." 

"Yes.    More  suitable  for  old  maids." 

"Be  quiet,  Jules.  I  assure  you,  madame,  that  if 
you  are  going  to  have  a  pretty  room  for  yourself  and 
Monsieur " 

They  bought  the  wooden  bed,  and  walked  on  to  the 
Rue  Dumeril,  where  Manon  had  discovered  two  shops 
that  had  pleased  her,  one  of  them  a  bazaar  that  supplied 
anything  from  a  table-knife  to  an  enamelled  soap-dish.  At 
another  shop  over  the  way  Manon  bought  material  for 
curtains,  some  cheaper  bedding,  and  two  rugs.  She  had 
her  lists  made  out  in  a  note-book,  a  hypothetical  price 
placed  against  each  article,  and  she  worked  methodically 
through  each  list,  refusing  to  be  hurried.  It  was  a  very 
serious  affair  this  restocking  of  a  kitchen  and  a  linen  cup- 
board, with  every  sheet,  towel  and  blanket  to  be  examined 
and  handled,  and  Paul  saw  that  it  would  take  days. 

"I  shall  leave  you  at  home  this  afternoon,"  she  told 
him,  as  they  walked  back  to  dine  at  the  auberge ;  "a  man 
in  a  draper's  shop  is  like  a  dog  on  a  string." 

He  laughed. 

"It  does  not  bore  me,  you  know.  I  just  stand  and 
look  at  you." 

"Yes,  and  it  upsets  my  ideas." 

"I'll  go  shopping  on  my  own;  there  are  those  tools 
and  fencing  wire  that  I  want  to  take  back  to-morrow  in 
Talmas'  cart." 

"That  is  a  good  idea.  And,  oh,  Paul,  don't  forget  the 
spinach  seed.  And  this  evening  we  will  go  and  sit  in  th* 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  261 

cathedral,  and  afterwards  we  will  drink  coffee  or  a  bock 
outside  the  cafe.  You  don't  wish  to  go  to  a  cinema,  do 
you?" 

"Is  it  likely  ?"  said  her  man. 

Brent  had  known  Amiens  during  the  war,  but  the 
Amiens  of  his  wanderings  while  Manon  shopped  was  not 
the  city  he  had  known  of  old.  Amiens  depressed  him.  Its 
narrow,  crowded  side-walks  and  penitential  pave  made  life 
uncomfortable  for  a  stroller  who  soon  grew  tired  of  staring 
in  shop-windows,  and  Amiens — like  all  cities — had  the 
power  of  impressing  itself  with  unpleasant  vigour  upon 
the  casual  countryman.  The  peasant  is  jostled  out  of  his 
little,  quiet  complacencies.  He  has  not  the  spaciousness 
of  the  fields  to  comfort  him;  the  city  cinema-show  tries 
his  eyes.  Too  many  people,  too  much  noise,  too  much 
restlessness ! 

Amiens  made  Paul  feel  home-sick.  He  sat  on  a  damp 
seat  in  one  of  the  boulevards,  a  man  with  the  soul  of  a 
peasant,  a  man  to  whom — after  the  first  hour  of  window- 
gazing — this  city  could  offer  nothing.  He  felt  tired, 
absurdly  tired,  and  ready  to  be  taken  home  like  a  child. 
Home?  What  was  home?  The  place  where  he  worked, 
where  the  crops  grew,  where  he  sat  by  the  stove  in  a 
French  village  ?  Yes,  it  was  that  and  more  than  that,  and 
in  those  moments  of  loneliness  Paul  discovered  the  blood 
and  the  flesh  behind  the  conventional  picture.  To  man 
home  was  a  woman,  the  woman,  that  and  nothing  else. 
The  rest  was  mere  furniture,  baggage,  call  it  what  you 
will,  inanimate  things  that  become  alive  only  when  a 
woman  moved  among  them  and  turned  them  into  mute 
symbols  of  sentiment  and  tenderness.  It  was  Manon  who 
mattered,  Manon  the  woman. 

It  began  to  rain  again,  and  Paul  jumped  up.  He 
walked  fast  down  the  wet  streets  and  the  people  in  the 
streets  had  ceased  to  be  strangers.  Even  the  few  figures 
in  khaki  refused  to  accuse  him  of  being  an  exile,  a  bastard 
Frenchman  masquerading  in  French  clothes.  He  looked 
up  at  the  fleche  of  the  cathedral,  and  his  heart  felt  big  in 


262  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE 

him,  big  with  a  sense  of  the  common  humanity  of  them 
all. 

Paul  went  straight  to  the  auberge,  and  opening  the 
glass-panelled  door,  found  Madame  Berthier  knitting. 
She  looked  up  at  him  with  a  smile. 

"Manon  is  not  back  ?" 
.  "Not  yet." 

He  went  out  with  happy  impatience,  and  waited  on  the 
bridge  in  the  rain.  He  felt  that  she  would  come  that  way, 
and  while  he  waited  there  a  very  wonderful  thing  hap- 
pened. The  battered-looking  street,  the  grey  quays,  the 
green-black  water  of  the  river  had  seemed  heavily  grey  and 
ugly.  Suddenly  the  sun  broke  through,  sending  down  a 
shower  of  yellow  light,  while  the  rain  continued  to  fall.  A 
coloured  bow  overarched  the  city.  The  chestnuts  glittered, 
wet  with  a  beautiful  splendour  of  light.  The  cathedral 
seemed  to  tower  into  the  sky,  flashing  its  dripping  stones 
and  pinnacles  and  windows,  its  fleche  ashine  against  a 
great  black  cloud. 

Paul  stood  spellbound.  His  eyes  were  the  eyes  of  an 
awed  yet  delighted  child. 

Manon  surprised  him  in  that  moment  of  un-self-con- 
sciousness.  She  came  across  the  bridge  without  his  seeing 
her,  and  the  look  on  his  face  made  her  think  of  a  window 
opened  in  heaven.  His  face  was  wet  with  the  rain;  he 
was  smiling. 

She  did  not  speak,  but  came  and  stood  beside  him  as 
though  to  share  the  beauty  that  enchanted  him;  to  gaze 
at  the  sun-splashed  trees  and  the  splendour  of  mystery 
that  enveloped  the  cathedral.  Paul's  smiling  eyes  came 
down  out  of  the  heaven  to  her,  and  the  smile  became 
human. 

"I've  been  waiting  here.  I  thought  you  would  come 
by  the  bridge." 

"You  have  been  feeling  lonely,"  she  said. 

"How  do  you  know  that  ?" 

He  caught  her  hand  and  held  it  firm  and  fast,  and  they 
leant  over  the  rail  of  the  bridge  and  looked  at  the  still 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE  263 

water  whose  surface  was  no  longer  blurred  by  the  rain. 
There  were  wonderful  reflections  in  the  water,  and  there 
were  strange  lights  in  Manon's  eyes.  She  had  felt  the 
strong  grip  of  Paul's  hand,  and  a  quiver  of  deep  passion 
that  woke  a  cry  of  exultation  and  of  understanding  in  her 
heart. 

"I  want  to  go  home,"  he  said. 

"Home?" 

"To  Beaucourt." 

He  felt  the  pressure  of  her  firm,  warm  fingers. 

"Is  Beaucourt  home  to  you  ?" 

He  smiled  down  at  the  water. 

"I  felt  like  a  lost  child  this  afternoon.  I  had  to  come 
back  to  try  and  find  you.  I  wanted  you;  I  never  knew 
I  could  want  you  so  much." 

"Mon  cheri,"  she  said;  "so  you  waited  out  here  in 
the  rain  ?  And  then  the  sun  shone  ?" 

"And  you  came  back.  Home  is  where  you  are.  That's 
a  great  discovery  for  a  man  to  make,  is  it  not?" 

"Had  you  never  discovered  it  before  ?" 

"No." 

"Then  I  am  the  first  woman  you  have  loved,"  she  said 
simply ;  "I  am  very  happy." 

Paul  kissed  her  softly  on  the  cheek,  and  their  reflec- 
tions in  the  water  below  imitated  that  kiss. 

Madame  Berthier  gave  the  lovers  an  early  supper, 
and  after  the  meal  they  wandered  out  into  Amiens,  walk- 
ing arm  in  arm.  To  Paul  Amiens  was  no  longer  a  strange 
city  full  of  cold,  anonymous  faces.  They  entered  the 
cathedral  and  sat  a  while  in  the  great  nave,  watching  the 
pigeons  flying  to  and  fro  in  the  sunset  light  of  the  clere- 
story, for  the  glass  was  gone  from  many  of  the  windows, 
and  the  pigeons  nested  in  this  great  dovecote.  Paul  held 
Manon's  hand.  They  spoke  in  whispers. 

"Only  good  men  could  have  built  this  place." 

"Good  workmen,  anyhow,"  said  her  lover;  "I  think 
we  have  forgotten  something." 

"Mon  Dieu,  something  I  should  have  bought  ?" 


264          THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

He  gave  a  soft  laugh. 

"No,  not  that.  This  place  reminds  me  of  that  house 
of  yours." 

"Ours,"  she  corrected. 

"Ours.  You  could  put  it  here  inside  the  cathedral. 
It's  part  of  the  same  stuff.  I  don't  want  to  live  in  a  world 
of  sky-scrapers." 

"What  are  sky-scrapers  ?" 

"The  buildings  in  New  York,  America.  It's  a  great 
age,  but,  good  God,  I'm  satisfied  with  Beaucourt." 

"Always  ?" 

""You  are  not  going  to  die  yet,  are  you  ?" 

"Mon  cheri,  not  before  you  marry  me." 

"And  there  will  always  be  work  to  do  in  Beaucourt, 
the  sort  of  work  that  makes  a  man  go  to  bed  happily 
with  the  smell  of  good  soil  or  sawdust  in  his  nostrils. 
I  say,  that  was  a  wonderful  bed  we  bought  this  morning!" 

"Yes.  We  should  not  have  liked  an  iron  bed.  You 
will  hold  me  very  close,  some  day,  my  Paul." 

"And  I  shall  never  let  you  go." 

Next  morning  Brent  tied  up  his  belongings  in  the  check 
handkerchief,  kissed  Manon,  shook  hands  with  Madame 
Berth:  er,  and  marched  off  to  the  Place  \7ogel.  Monsieur 
Talmas'  cart  started  at  nine  on  the  return  journey  to 
Beaucourt,  and  Paul  found  two  other  travellers  on  the 
wooden  seat,  an  old  lady  who  was  joining  her  married 
daughter,  and  Monsieur  Poupart,  who  had  been  spending 
two  days  in  Amiens  buying  goods  for  the  shop.  Pou- 
part had  a  yellow  face  and  a  melancholy  manner,  and 
the  old  woman  had  been  boring  him  with  the  irritating 
vivacity  of  second  childhood.  She  asked  interminable 
questions. 

"Work  the  pump,  will  you?"  said  Poupart  to  his 
neighbour;  "my  arm  is  stiff.  They  had  la  grippe  in  the 
Louse  where  I  have  been  staying;  I  expect  I  have  caught 
it;  I  always  do." 

"I  have  had  la  grippe  thirteen  times,"  said  the  old  lady 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  265 

triumphantly,  leaning  forward  and  looking  across  Paul 
at  the  pessimist. 

"The  thirteenth  attack  should  have  killed  you,  ma- 
dame;"  and,  in  a  truculent  aside,  "you  would  never  have 
had  thirteen  attacks  if  you  had  been  my  mother-in-law.''' 

The  old  lady  chattered  to  Paul  all  the  way  to  Beaucourt. 
She  was  very  inquisitive,  and  Paul  was  hard  put  to  keep 
her  curiosity  within  the  limits  of  a  decent  reticence,  for 
her  old  hands  were  ready  to  pull  everything  to  pieces, 
even  to  interfere  with  her  neighbours'  clothes.  She  asked 
Paul  if  he  was  married,  and  cackled  when  he  told  her  that 
he  was  only  betrothed. 

Poupart  listened  with  a  sardonic  solemnity.  He  caught 
Paul's  eye,  and  nudged  him  with  his  elbow. 

"Push  her  downstairs." 

Paul  laughed. 

"La  Croix  would  have  done  that  years  ago  if  he  had 
not  been  a  fool." 

"I  understand  what  you  are  saying,  quite  well,  Mon- 
sieur Poupart.  No  one  has  been  able  to  break  my  neck 
for  me." 

"What  a  pity,  madame!"  said  the  man. 

Monsieur  Talmas'  cart  entered  Beaucourt  by  the  Bon- 
niere  road,  and  just  beyond  the  gates  of  the  factory,  where 
a  number  of  workmen  were  lounging,  they  passed  a  waggon 
drawn  in  at  the  side  of  the  road  and  laden  with  the  sections 
of  a  hut.  Brent,  who  had  been  looking  at  the  factory, 
felt  himself  nudged  by  Monsieur  Poupart's  sharp  elbow. 

"Look  there!"' 

Ten  yards  beyond  the  waggon  a  man  was  sitting  on 
the  grass  banlc,  the  man  whose  closed  eyelids  seemed  sunk 
in  their  eye-sockets.  A  girl  with  red  hair  was  standing 
beside  the  man,  a  girl  with  narrow  lips  and  a  prominent 
bosom.  She  was  speaking  to  the  driver  of  the  waggon 
who  was  unhooking  his  horses. 

"It  is  Louis  Blanc,"  said  the  shopkeeper,  staring  in- 
quisitively at  the  woman. 


266  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

Paul  was  conscious  of  a  shock  of  astonishment.  It 
was  Bibi  himself,  blind  and  bearded,  sitting  there  and 
listening  to  what  the  girl  was  saying,  his  head  slightly  on 
one  side  like  the  head  of  a  listening  bird.  A  couple  of 
sticks  lay  on  the  bank  beside  him !  He  was  dressed  in  his 
best  clothes. 
.  "He's  blind,  you  know,"  said  Poupart ;  "poor  devil  I" 

Brent's  eyes  were  grim.  He  realized  that  he  had  not 
prepared  himself  for  the  return  of  Bibi,  for  Bibi  had 
passed  out  of  the  life  of  the  village,  and  his  reappearance 
filled  Brent  with  a  feeling  akin  to  nausea.  It  was  the  re- 
turn of  something  that  was  essentially  evil,  an  element  of 
discord,  the  spirit  of  malice. 

Paul  was  staring  hard  at  Louis  Blanc  and  as  the  cart 
passed  him  Bibi  raised  his  head  with  a  jerk.  His  eye- 
sockets  were  fixed  upon  Brent.  He  seemed  to  feel  the 
passing  of  an  enemy  and  the  challenge  of  an  enemy's  eyes. 

Paul  drew  back  and  looked  away.  He  heard  Bibi 
speaking  to  the  girl  with  the  red  hair;  he  was  asking  her 
who  was  in  the  cart  that  had  passed. 

"It's  the  carrier's  van,"  she  said. 

"Who's  inside?" 

"Two  men  and  an  old  woman.  Now,  then,  are  you 
quite  sure  this  is  your  piece  of  ground?  It  lies  opposite 
the  end  of  the  factory  wall." 

Bibi  had  owned  half  an  acre  of  orchard  here. 

"Yes,  that's  it.  Count  the  trees.  There  used  to  be 
thirty-six,  all  apples.  They  were  standing  there  months 
ago." 

Barbe,  of  the  Coq  d'Or,  took  a  step  up  the  bank  and 
counted  the  trees. 

"I  make  the  number  thirty-five." 

"Near  enough.  We  will  have  the  hut  off  the  waggon 
here.  Give  me  a  hand;  I  can  help  the  fellow  to  unload." 

Some  of  the  workmen  came  across  to  help  in  the  un- 
loading. They  thought  that  Bibi  had  lost  his  eyesight 
in  the  war;  and  Barbe  was  very  attractive  to  men.  They 
fraternized  with  Bibi. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  267 

"You  are  good  fellows,"  lie  said,  "not  like  these  damned 
peasants.  There  will  be  some  good  wine  here  when  my 
buvette  goes  up." 

"What,  you  are  going  to  sell  drink,  old  man  ?" 

"Plenty  of  it,"  said  Bibi. 


XXXVI 

THE  events  that  agitated  Monsieur  Anatole  Durand 
were  the  arrival  of  the  "Elephant's"  workmen  and  the 
birth  of  Bibi's  buvette. 

Anatole  had  Marcel  Lefebre  at  his  elbow,  and  Lefebre 
had  never  hesitated  to  say  that  it  was  in  the  factory  that 
the  modern  social  diseases  were  hatched  and  bred.  If  you 
argued  the  point  with  him  and  quoted  the  example  of 
Monsieur  Menier  and  his  Chocolate  Town  he  would  an- 
swer that  there  were  very  few  enlightened  men  like  Mon- 
sieur Menier,  and  that  factories  existed  not  for  the  good 
of  the  workpeople  but  to  make  money.  To  Marcel  Lefebre 
the  making  of  money  was  the  root  of  all  evil.  It  de- 
bauched both  the  capitalist  and  the  worker,  begot  the  bas- 
tard lives  that  men  live  in  great  cities,  made  life  hectic  and 
unreal.  He  combated  the  assertion  that  the  peasants  were 
hard,  greedy,  less  intelligent  than  the  dwellers  in  cities, 
and  he  would  ask  you  whether  a  man  who  could  carry  out 
all  the  varied  and  scientific  work  on  a  farm  had  not  a 
more  fully  developed  and  intelligent  life  than  a  workman 
who  spent  each  day  cutting  threads  on  a  screw,  who  read 
nothing  but  the  "red  rags"  and  talked  about  things  that 
he  did  not  understand.  In  the  villages  you  found  no 
venereal  disease,  few  prostitutes,  none  of  the  grosser  sorts 
of  crime.  An  occasional  murder,  perhaps ;  but  Lefebre 
was  a  man  of  passions — disciplined  passions — and  yet  he 
could  understand  the  violence  that  shed  blood.  There 
are  occasions  when  the  killing  of  a  man  is  a  wholesome  and 
a  cleanly  act. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  Lefebre's  prejudices  were 

justified  by  the  temper  of  the  men  whom  Monsieur  Goblet 

introduced  into  Beaucourt.     The  "Elephant"  had  picked 

up  the  dregs  of  the  casual  labour  that  had  been  set  free 

268 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  269 

from  the  munition  works  and  the  army,  fellows  who 
drifted,  youngsters  who  had  learnt  too  soon  the  vices  of 
grown  men.  Very  few  of  Goblet's  original  "hands" 
had  returned;  some  had  been  killed;  others  had  settled 
elsewhere;  for  the  few  who  were  ready  to  return  there 
could  be  no  technical  work  until  the  buildings  had  been 
repaired  and  new  machinery  installed.  Durand  had 
spoken  of  "riff-raff,"  and  the  words  fitted  the  case  exactly. 
Monsieur  Goblet  had  picked  up  the  riff-raff  that  is  to  be 
found  in  all  cities.  There  were  some  good  men  among 
them,  one  or  two  of  the  older  bricklayers,  the  engineer, 
and  two  of  the  mechanics.  The  rest  were  a  bad  lot,  ready 
to  run  about  the  village  and  make  trouble  with  the  women. 

As  for  Louis  Blanc's  buvette,  that,  too,  could  not  be 
helped,  nor  does  any  sensible  Frenchman  quarrel  with  a 
seller  of  good  wine.  Bibi's  buvette  grew  up  like  a  gourd, 
for  the  workmen  over  the  way  saw  that  the  plant  was  for 
their  own  pleasure,  and  spent  the  evenings  in  helping  it  to 
grow.  They  put  up  Bibi's  hut  for  him,  built  Mademoiselle 
Barbe  a  throne  and  a  set  of  shelves,  knocked  tables  and 
benches  together,  even  helped  with  the  furniture.  Bibi 
had  a  small  marquee  as  well  as  a  hut.  He  meant  to  sleep 
in  the  marquee,  but  Mademoiselle  Barbe  demanded  a  door 
and  a  lock,  and  the  room  that  was  partitioned  off  at  the 
end  of  the  hut.  For  one  day  Bibi  distributed  free  drinks 
in  token  of  his  gratitude  to  the  good  fellows  who  had  their 
eyes  fixed  on  the  red-haired  girl's  petticoat.  Bibi  became 
popular.  He  had  a  fine  collection  of  lewd  stories  suited  to 
the  gentlemen  whom  the  "Elephant"  had  imported  into 
Beaucourt. 

Durand  professed  to  see  virtues  in  Louis  Blanc's  estab- 
lishment. 

"It  will  keep  the  roughs  out  of  the  village." 

Lefebre  insisted  on  seeing  the  truth. 

"There  is  part  of  the  village  that  may  be  glad  to  join 
the  roughs." 

"Mon  Dieu,"  said  Anatole,  "are  we  not  rather  like  a 
couple  of  fussy  old  hens  ?" 


270  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

"My  religion  spreads  its  wings  over  the  children.  You 
know  very  well,  my  friend,  that  Goblet  has  opened  the 
lid  of  the  box.  We  shall  have  trouble  here." 

Durand  bit  his  finger-nails. 

"There  may  be  a  way  of  persuading  that  fellow  Blanc 
to  disappear." 

Paul  missed  the  events  of  those  few  days,  for  Amiens 
had  made  him  a  present,  the  present  that  Monsieur 
Poupart  had  expected  to  bring  back  with  him.  Brent 
went  down  with  influenza,  an  influenza  of  a  particularly 
virulent  type.  He  was  alone  in  the  house,  Luce  Philipon 
having  returned  to  her  parents,  and  the  disease  struck 
Paul  like  a  dose  of  poison.  He  was  at  work  in  the  morn- 
ing; that  evening  he  was  delirious,  with  a  temperature 
that  had  soared. 

About  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening  old  Prosper  Cordon- 
nier,  who  slept  at  the  chateau,  and  acted  as  Anatole's 
"store-guard,"  was  sent  down  by  Durand  to  the  Cafe  de 
la  Victoire  with  a  message  to  Brent.  Anatole  wished  him 
to  come  up  next  day  and  make  a  rough  survey  of  the 
chateau.  Cordonnier  found  the  cafe  shut  up,  but  hearing 
a  voice,  he  knocked  at  the  door.  No  one  answered  the 
knock,  so  Cordonnier  tried  the  door,  and  finding  it  un- 
locked, walked  in. 

It  was  still  sufficiently  light  for  Cordonnier  to  see  his 
way  about  the  house,  and  he  discovered  Brent  in  bed  in 
the  little  room  whose  window  overlooked  the  garden. 
Paul  was  delirious,  and  talking  all  sorts  of  imaginable 
nonsense,  and  he  was  talking  in  English.  Cordonnier 
stood  and  stared  at  him.  This  lingo  was  strange  to  Pros- 
per, who  had  passed  his  refugee  years  working  on  a  farm 
in  the  Gironde. 

Cordonnier  bent  over  the  bed,  and  shook  Brent  by  the 
shoulder. 

"Hallo,  old  chap,  what's  the  matter?" 

Brent  pushed  him  away. 

"Bosh,"  he  said,  "bosh!     Oh,  go  to  the  devil!" 

Cordonnier  left  him,  but  he  stood  in  the  passage  for  a 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  271 

minute  or  two,  rubbing  his  chin  and  listening.  Prosper 
had  been  known  in  Beaucourt  as  "Mutton  Head,"  a  man 
of  slow  movements,  very  stupid,  yet  touchily  conscious  of 
lis  stupidity.  People  had  laughed  at  him,  and  this 
laughter  had  bred  in  Cordonnier  a  stubborn  reticence.  He 
used  very  few  words,  and  those  of  the  simplest.  He  talked 
only  of  obvious  things,  and  if  anyone  asked  him  for  an 
opinion  he  bolted  back  into  his  silence  like  a  rabbit  into 
a  hole.  He  had  one  failing,  a  fondness  for  drink,  and  he 
had  been  heard  to  argue  with  a  mild  recklessness  upon 
the  contrasted  virtues  of  farmyard  dung  and  chemical 
manures. 

Cordonnier  went  back  to  the  chateau. 

"That  fellow  Paul  might  have  been  talking  German," 
was  the  thought  that  entered  his  head,  "but  we  won't  say 
anything  about  that.  They  always  laugh,  the  fools!  A 
man  should  keep  things  to  himself." 

He  told  Durand  that  Paul  was  sick.  "I  found  him  in 
bed,  monsieur.  You  had  better  see  him  yourself  in  the 
morning." 

"Nothing  serious,  Prosper?" 

Cordonnier  avoided  expressing  his  opinion. 

"He  was  in  bed,  monsieur,  so  I  came  away." 

Anatole  was  with  Paul  early  the  next  day;  the  high 
fever  had  passed,  and  he  found  Brent  .flushed  but  sane. 
He  remembered  nothing  of  Cordonnier' s  visit,  nor  had  it 
occurred  to  him  that  he  might  have  been  babbling  in 
English. 

"This  comes  of  taking  a  holiday  in  Amiens." 

Durand  lit  the  stove  in  the  kitchen,  warmed  up  some 
milk,  and  made  Paul  drink  it. 

"When  does  Manon  come  back?" 

"To-morrow." 

"I  will  fetch  Mere  Vitry.  She  is  a  good  nurse,  and  she 
will  be  glad  to  look  after  you." 

And  there  the  incident  ended.  Mere  Vitry  came  in,  a 
very  willing  angel  of  mercy,  with  her  patched  skirt,  and 
her  bright  black  eyes.  She  washed  Paul's  hands  and  face, 


272  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

talking  to  him  as  she  would  have  talked  to  a  baby,  and 
shuffling  about  the  house  in  an  old  pair  of  felt  slippers. 
In  the  toe  of  one  of  these  slippers  a  mouse  had  gnawed  a 
hole,  and  the  little  black  circle  fascinated  Brent.  It 
looked  like  a  bird's  eye. 

Manon  returned  next  day  in  Monsieur  Talmas'  cart. 
She  found  Mere  Vitry  sitting  in  the  kitchen,  darning 
Paul's  socks,  her  cat  asleep  on  the  table  by  the  window,  and 
the  coffee-pot  ready  on  the  stove.  Manon  had  been  in  a 
state  of  pleasant  excitement  from  the  moment  that  she 
had  left  Amiens.  She  was  returning  to  her  home  and  to 
her  lover. 

"You  have  been  looking  after  mv  man.  How  good  of 
you." 

"S-sh!"  said  Mere  Vitry,  "he  is  asleep." 

"Asleep!" 

"He  has  been  ill,  my  dear,  but  he  is  better.  Monsieur 
Durand  says  it  is  la  grippe.  Perhaps  you  had  better  not 
go  into  the  room." 

Manon  put  her  bag  on  the  table,  took  off  her  hat,  and 
behaved  as  Mere  Vitry  would  have  behaved  in  impulsively 
flouting  her  own  advice.  She  went  to  the  door  of  Paul's 
room,  opened  it  without  a  sound,  and  stood  looking  at  him 
as  he  lay  in  bed  asleep. 

It  was  that  kiss  on  the  forehead  that  woke  Brent.  He 
opened  his  eyes  to  find  her  bending  over  him,  her  warm 
red  mouth  still  shaping  a  kiss.  Her  clothes  and  her  bosom 
smelt  faintly  of  some  delicate  perfume,  and  her  hands  were 
touching  his  shoulders. 

"Mon  pauvre,"  she  said. 

Brent  lay  and  looked  at  her.  He  was  thinking  that  he 
had  never  had  a  more  pleasant  awakening  than  the  lipa 
of  Manon  had  given  him  in  their  new  home. 

"So  you  are  back." 

He  was  content  to  look  at  her,  and  she  understood  the 
happy  indolence  in  his  eyes. 

"You  should  have  sent  me  a  message.  How  long  have 
you  been  ill?" 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  273 

She  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  the  bed,  and  held  one  of 
his  hands. 

"I  am  not  complaining." 

"No?" 

"To  wake  up  like  this,  and  suddenly  see  you,  here. 
But,  little  woman,  you  ought  not  to  be  here." 

"Who  says  so?" 

"I  do.    I  don't  want  you  ill." 

"Indeed!" 

Deliberately,  wilfully,  she  bent  forward  till  her  face 
was  close  to  his. 

"I  am  afraid  of  nothing  that  you  could  give  me.  So 
there." 

Brent  would  not  kiss  her  lips,  but  he  kissed  her  hand. 

"I  shall  be  up  in  two  days.  Life  is  so  exciting  just 
now.  When  does  the  furniture  arrive  ?" 

"On  Friday." 

And  suddenly  he  remembered  that  Louis  Blanc  had 
returned  to  Beaucourt.  He  wondered  if  Manon  knew. 

She  was  leaning  back  and  looking  at  him,  aware  of  the 
sudden  seriousness  of  his  eyes. 

"What  is  it  ?"  she  asked. 

"Nothing." 

"You  are  in  pain?" 

"No." 

"But  there  is  something ;  I  am  not  to  be  deceived." 

He  smiled  up  at  her. 

"How  you  notice  things." 

"Yes.  I  saw  Bibi  and  his  new  hut  near  the  factory. 
Is  that  what  is  worrying  you  ?  Monsieur  Talmas  told  me. 
It  does  not  worry  me." 

Brent's  face  cleared.  In  some  ways  women  are  more 
courageous  and  more  imperturbable  than  men. 

"Well,  then,  it  does  not  matter,"  he  said,  "but  I  wish 
that  fellow  had  taken  his  blind  face  somewhere  else." 

In  their  happiness  they  were  ready  to  forget  Louis 
Blanc  and  that  brown  hut  of  his  among  the  apple  trees  on 
the  bank  above  the  Bonniere  road.  The  buvette  was  com- 


274  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

plete.  Mademoiselle  Barbe  had  her  comptoir  and  her 
shelves  for  bottles,  and  at  night  the  factory  workmen 
crowded  in  and  sat  round  the  improvised  tables  and  drank 
Bibi's  execrable  wine.  Those  who  were  unable  to  find  room 
in  the  hut  made  themselves  at  home  under  the  apple  trees. 
They  were  noisy;  they  sang.  Bibi  had  a  chair  beside 
Barbe's  comptoir.  He  talked  a  great  deal,  but  he  never 
laughed.  His  blind  face  was  the  face  of  a  man  who 
listened  for  some  particular  voice,  the  voice  of  an  enemy. 

This  hut  of  his  was  like  an  outpost,  or  a  rallying  point 
in  the  inevitable  antagonisms  that  were  stirring  in  the 
village.  Peasant  Beaucourt  looked  at  it  with  unfriendly 
eyes.  It  was  not  that  these  peasants  were  saints;  far 
from  it ;  and  yet  it  was  as  though  that  arch-peasant,  Mon- 
sieur Lefebre,  had  placed  Bibi  and  his  buvette  under  an 
interdict.  There  were  elemental  discords  between  the 
tiller  of  the  fields  and  these  ouvriers.  The  peasant  had 
his  home,  his  wife,  his  daughters,  his  work,  his  crops ;  the 
factory  hand  was  an  Ishmaelite,  noisy,  contentious, 
cynical,  full  of  crude  theories  about  double  pay  and  less 
work.  He  had  no  woman  with  him,  and  your  barrack- 
housed  man  is  a  troublesome  dog.  He  will  spend  half  his 
night  sniffing  after  petticoats,  and  in  Beaucourt  the  petti- 
coats belonged  to  the  peasants. 

This  tacit  antagonism  existed  long  before  it  was  actually 
provoked  by  the  inevitable  escapades  of  the  "Elephant's" 
roughs.  To  Beaucourt,  the  Beaucourt  that  followed 
Durand,  Lefebre,  Philipon  and  their  party,  Bibi's  buvette 
was  out  of  bounds.  No  one  went  there.  If  a  man  wanted 
a  little  red  wine,  he  got  it  at  Manon's  cafe,  and  so,  almost 
insensibly,  the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire  became  involved  in  the 
feud. 

Prosper  Cordonnier  was  the  first  of  the  peasant  party 
to  secede,  and  his  secession  was  furtive  and  occasional. 
This  bibulous  and  inarticulate  old  manhad  felt  a  dryness 
at  the  throat  whenever  he  passed  al^J^the  Rue  de  Bon- 
niere.  His  timidity  and  his  passion  for  strong  drink 
struggled  together  for  a  long  time  before  that  scorching 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  275 

and  dusty  day  provided  both  the  temptation  and  the 
opportunity.  It  was  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon ;  every- 
body was  at  work,  and  Prosper,  who  had  been  on  an  errand 
for  Anatole  Durand,  passed  Bibi's  buvette  at  an  hour 
when  it  was  empty.  Bibi  himself  was  sitting  in  the 
shadow  of  the  doorway ;  Mademoiselle  Barbe  had  gone  to 
Amiens  in  Talmas'  cart. 

Prosper  loitered,  looking  shyly  at  the  board  over  the 
door.  It  occurred  to  him  that  it  would  be  polite  and  neigh- 
bourly to  speak  to  Bibi,  this  poor  fellow  who  had  lost  hia 
sight. 

"Good  evening,  monsieur." 

Bibi  sat  up  very  straight  in  his  chair. 

"Hallo,  who's  that  ?" 

"Prosper  Cordonnier." 

"Come  up  and  drink." 

Golden  words  on  a  scorching  July  day!  Prosper  Cor- 
donnier surrendered. 

"Help  yourself,"  said  Bibi. 

It  was  pleasantly  cool  and  shady  in  the  hut,  and  Prosper, 
after  selecting  a  bottle  and  a  glass  from  Mademoiselle 
Barbe's  shelves,  sat  down  on  a  box  by  the  doorway. 

"It  is  very  warm,  monsieur.  What  shall  I  pay  you 
for  the  wine  ?" 

"Nothing,"  said  Bibi. 

"But,  monsieur " 

"You  did  me  a  good  turn  once,  I  don't  forget.  Pour 
me  out  a  glass,  old  chap." 

Cordonnier  had  laid  a  hand  upon  one  of  the  most;  potent 
of  Mademoiselle  Barbe's  bottles,  and  in  a  little  while  the 
cords  of  his  tongue  were  loosened.  He  became  affection- 
ate, talkative,  foolishly  confidential,  dragging  his  box  close 
to  Louis  Blanc's  chair,  and  tapping  him  on  the  knee  with 
an  intimate  finger.  He  began  to  gossip  about  Beaucourt, 
the  peasant  part  of  Beaucourt.  He  had  his  grievances. 
His  dignity  in  Beaucourt  had  never  been  sufficiently 
considered. 

"Tiens,  but  what  do  I  do  at  my  age  but  run  messages 


276  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

for  Anatole  Durand!  And  believe  me,  monsieur,  I  get 
two  francs  a  day  for  it,  my  food,  and  a  couple  of  blankets. 
Because  a  man  has  learnt  to  hold  his  tongue  some  people 
think  he  is  worth  nothing  at  all." 

Bibi  sympathized  with  him.  Old  Cordonnier  was  a 
prodigious  bore,  but  a  blind  man  has  to  be  patient. 

"He  is  a  dull  dog,  old  Durand." 

"What  I  complain  of,  monsieur,  is  that  he  has  favour- 
ites. Look  at  Manon  Latour  and  that  fellow,  Paul 
Ranee." 

Bibi  yawned. 

"Are  they  favourites  of  his  ?  Fill  up  your  glass, 
Prosper." 

Cordonnier  babbled  on. 

"That  fellow  Paul  Ranee  has  a  tin  of  milk  a  day;  I 
have  to  carry  it  down  each  morning." 

"What,  is  he  ill?" 

"La  grippe.  And  that  reminds  me  of  a  funny  thing, 
monsieur.  I  happened  to  go  down  to  the  cafe  when  he 
was  taken  ill,  and  he  was  all  alone  there  in  bed,  and  talking 
to  himself  in  German." 

Bibi  sat  very  still  in  his  chair. 

"But  that  sounds  absurd.  How  did  you  know  it  was 
German  ?" 

"Well,  it  was  not  French,  monsieur;  but  of  course, 
nobody  ever  pays  any  attention  to  me,  so  I  never  mention 
such  a  thing  to  anybody." 

He  raised  his  glass  and  drank  to  his  own  neglected 
dignity. 

"It  is  a  great  mistake  to  gossip,  monsieur.  I  always 
hold  my  tongue.  I'm  not  an  old  woman." 

Bibi  did  not  answer  him.  His  blind  face  seemed  to 
have  sunk  back  into  the  shadow  of  the  hut.  He  was 
breathing  deeply,  nostrils  dilated  and  twitching.  This  old 
fool  of  a  Cordonnier  had  dropped  a  casual  spark  and  set 
an  idea  alight. 

For    Bibi's    hatred    of    Paul    Brent    had    become    an 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  277 

obsession.  His  blindness  intensified  it,  shutting  him  up  in 
the  darkness  with  his  hatred  of  the  man  who  had  taken 
away  his  sight.  He  would  sit  .for  hours  thinking  of  a  pos- 
sible revenge,  but  he  spoke  of  it  to  no  one,  not  even  Barbe. 

/  * 


XXXVII 

BRENT  was  up  and  about  on  that  great  day  when  the  fur- 
niture arrived  from  Amiens.  It  made  a  triumphant  entry 
into  Beaucourt,  piled  in  two  waggons,  and  followed  by  half 
the  youngsters  in  the  village.  All  the  morning  was  spent 
in  unloading  it  and  carrying  it  into  the  house,  for  Paul's 
staircase  was  a  staircase  of  moods  and  prejudices,  and  re- 
fused to  be  taken  by  storm.  The  two  men  who  came  with 
the  waggons  exercised  much  patient  and  laborious  per- 
suasion, inspired  by  the  enthusiasms  of  Manon  and  some 
practical  sympathy  in  the  form  of  red  wine.  Young 
Beaucourt  stood  on  the  pathway  and  stared  through  the 
windows. 

Brent  was  aware  of  Manon  as  a  pair  of  happy  eyes,  and 
a  blue  and  white  check  torchon.  She  was  everywhere, 
polishing,  supervising,  issuing  orders  in  that  caressing 
voice  of  hers,  a  housewife  in  heaven.  Paul  followed  her 
about  like  a  Greek  chorus.  He  had  been  forbidden  to 
carry  anything  heavy,  and  very  often  he  was  made  to  sit 
down  in  a  chair. 

They  hung  up  curtains,  put  down  rugs,  moved  the  beds 
to  and  fro  until  Manon' s  critical  taste  was  satisfied.  She 
would  run  forward,  give  a  touch  to  some  piece  of  furniture, 
and  then  come  back  to  Paul  and  stand  holding  his 
arm. 

"How  does  that  please  you  ?" 

"Everything  pleases  me,"  he  would  reply  with  the 
broad  appreciation  of  the  male. 

Neighbours  arrived  and  had  to  be  shown  over  the  house, 

Mere  Vitry,  Mesdames  Poupart  and  Philipon.    They  were 

enthusiastic  and  without  envy,  for  Manon  was  popular 

with  women,  and  it  was  not  easy  for  them  to  be  jealous 

278 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  279 

of  her.  There  was  no  guile  behind  her  enthusiasm;  she 
was  so  practical  yet  so  human  that  these  older  women 
seemed  to  feel  the  unspoilt  child  in  her. 

"So  you  will  be  married  soon,"  said  Madame  Poupart 
with  a  glance  at  the  new  bed  in  Manon's  room. 

Manon  was  laying  out  the  new  sheets  with  the  natural- 
ness of  a  woman  whose  whole  heart  was  absorbed  in  the 
great  affair. 

"Yes,  I  expect  so.  Paul  is  such  a  man  for  thorough- 
ness. He  insisted  on  finishing  all  the  repairs  before 
we  thought  of  marrying.  What  do  you  think  of  this 
linen  ?" 

The  women  examined  the  sheets,  holding  them  up  to 
the  light,  stretching  them  between  their  hands,  and  even 
scratching  the  fabric  with  their  finger-nails.  They  talked 
all  the  while,  and,  though  Manon  used  her  tongue,  her 
eyes  were  the  essentially  eloquent  part  of  her.  "We  are 
going  to  be  happy,"  she  said;  "I  feel  it  in  my  blood  and 
in  my  soul." 

Madame  Philipon  was  rubbing  the  linen  between  a 
thumb  and  forefinger. 

"It  is  not  so  good  as  before  the  war." 

"Nothing  is,"  said  Madame  Poupart;  "one  cannot 
expect  it" 

Manon  gave  a  lift  of  the  head,  and  laughed. 

"What  are  you  laughing  at,  ma  cherie  ?" 

"Oh,  nothing." 

"You  are  thinking  that  your  marriage  will  not  be  like 
these  sheets?" 

Rosalie  Philipon's  eyes  were  shy  and  affectionate. 

"Perhaps!" 

"I  think  you  will  always  be  happy.  There  are  some 
women  to  whom  a  man  cannot  be  unkind." 

Brent  had  disappeared  downstairs  with  the  amused 
tolerance  of  a  man  who  recognizes  his  own  occasional 
superfluity.  He  was  sitting  straddle-legged  on  a  chair 
by  the  kitchen  window  watching  the  two  men  preparing 
to  drive  their  two  waggons  back  to  Amiens,  and  listening 


280  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

to  the  voices  of  the  women  up  above.  The  animation  and 
the  intimacy  of  their  voices  soothed  him.  He  fell  into  a 
day-dream  in  which  he  felt  happily  conscious  of  all  the 
elemental  happenings  of  life,  a  woman's  kisses,  the  warmth 
of  her  bosom  in  those  dear  moments  of  surrender,  the 
tranquil  sound  of  her  breathing,  the  practical  and  caress- 
ing presence  of  her  by  day  and  by  night.  These  voices  sug- 
gested other  thoughts  and  emotions.  They  seemed  to  fill 
the  house  with  the  spirit  of  the  great  human  mystery. 
These  women  were  busy  about  a  bed.  It  was  almost  as 
though  they  were  waiting  for  the  little  cry  of  a  child — that 
faint  whimpering  that  fills  the  hushed  house  with  a  sense 
of  tender  exultation  and  relief. 

Brent's  eyes  were  blue  and  vague,  but  suddenly  the 
alertness  came  back  to  them  as  he  glanced  along  the  Rue 
de  Picardie.  Something  unusual  was  happening  in  Beau- 
court.  He  saw  a  crowd  of  children,  an  English  officer 
wheeling  a  bicycle,  and  behind  them  a  G.  S.  waggon  with 
three  khaki  figures  riding  on  it.  The  two  waggoners  were 
standing  in  the  middle  of  the  road  staring  at  the  pro- 
cession. 

Brent  had  a  moment  of  panic,  the  panic  of  a  man  with 
a  secret.  These  familiar  uniforms  were  so  unexpected 
and  so  reminiscent  of  much  that  he  wished  to  forget.  He 
stood  up  and  felt  his  heart  beating  hard  and  fast. 

The  window  was  open  and  he  heard  one  of  the  waggoners 
explain  these  English  to  his  comrade : 

"Les  exhumeurs." 

The  truth  flashed  upon  Brent.  They  had  come  to 
open  Beckett's  grave. 

He  was  conscious  of  a  profound  discouragement,  an 
inward  protest !  What  an  omen !  Why  had  they  chosen 
this  day  of  all  days  ?  He  had  a  feeling  that  he  wanted  to 
run  away  out  of  the  house,  and  to  remain  away  until  the 
affair  was  over. 

Cordonnier  was  knocking  at  the  door. 

"Madame  Latpur?" 

Brent  got  a  grip  on  himself.    He  felt  that  he  could  not 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  281 

leave  this  business  to  Manon,  and  that  he  did  not  want 
the  taint  of  it  in  her  heart  on  this  most  happy  and  innocent 
day.  He  went  to  the  door,  and  found  Cordonnier  and 
the  officer  waiting  on  the  path. 

Cordonnier  looked  under  his  slow  eyelids  at  Brent. 

"Monsieur  Paul,  here  is  an  English  officer  who  has 
come  to  take  away  a  body." 

Brent  glanced  at  the  officer.  He  was  the  most  harmless 
thing  imaginable,  a  Moth  in  Spectacles,  one  of  those 
anomalous  males  without  masculinity,  in  age  about  five- 
and-forty,  mild,  a  little  frightened,  with  a  brown  mous- 
tache that  fell  down  over  a  precise  mouth.  Brent  seemed 
to  know  that  there  was  a  patch  of  baldness  under  his  cap. 
He  was  indifferently  shaved.  His  tie  was  in  a  lump.  He 
wore  very  new  leggings  that  did  not  fit. 

"Bonjour,  monsieur." 

The  officer  began  in  text-book  French. 

"Bonjour,  monsieur,  est-ce  que  vous  avez  un  aoldat 
Anglais  enterre  ici  ?" 

"There  is  a  grave  in  the  orchard,  monsieur." 

The  officer  blinked. 

"Have  I  your  permission  to  remove  the  body  ?" 

"Certainly,  monsieur.    I  will  show  you." 

He  got  the  Englishman  away  before  Manon  could  ap- 
pear, and  taking  him  round  by  way  of  the  yard,  showed 
him  the  grassy  mound  and  the  wooden  cross  below  the 
bank  in  the  orchard.  The  soldiers  took  off  their  coats  and 
set  to  work.  Brent  turned  away  to  rout  a  dozen  in- 
quisitive youngsters  who  wanted  to  see  the  body  dug  up. 

"Allez!" 

He  looked  white  and  fierce,  and  the  children  fled. 

Brent  sat  on  the  bank  and  made  himself  watch  this 
opening  of  Beckett's  grave.  There  was  something  final 
about  it,  something  symbolical,  and  yet — as  performed  by 
these  English  Tommies — it  was  utterly  without  reverence. 
They  smoked  cigarettes ;  they  were  immensely  casual  and 
indolent;  it  was  evident  that  they  considered  their  officer 
a  negligible  old  woman.  Brent  watched  them  with  an 


282  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

increasing  dislike.  He  saw  one  man  spit  into  the  grave,  the 
instinctively  dirty  act  of  a  mere  common  man,  and  for  a 
moment  he  was  almost  on  his  feet  and  ready  to  call  them 
"swine."  His  eyes  met  the  brown,  short-sighted  eyes  of 
the  officer.  Brent  understood  that  he,  too,  despised  and 
loathed  these  men,  but  that  he  was  afraid  of  their  brute 
animal  obtuseness.  This,  too,  was  symbolical.  It  re- 
minded Brent  of  a  saying  of  Anatole  Durand's :  "In  these 
days  the  brain  of  civilization  is  afraid  to  tell  the  body  of 
civilization  what  an  ignorant  brute  it  is." 

Manon  came  out  into  the  orchard,  saw  Paul  sitting 
there,  and  understood.  She  gave  him  a  mother-look,  a 
caress  of  the  eyes,  and  slipped  away  without  his  realizing 
that  she  had  been  so  near  to  him. 

One  of  the  soldiers  stuck  his  pick  into  something. 

"The  old 's  there,  chum !" 

The  officer  winced.  Brent  looked  fierce.  He  made 
himself  go  and  stand  beside  the  officer. 

"Your  men  have  not  much  respect  for  the  dead, 
monsieur." 

The  Moth  in  Spectacles  understood  French  better  than 
he  spoke  it.  He  looked  almost  timidly  at  Brent. 

"It  is  habit,  monsieur.    They  are  awkward  brutes." 

He  spoke  to  one  of  the  men. 

"Be  careful,  Saunders;  that  Englishman  was  aiive 
once." 

"B y  nice  job  he  left  us,  anyhow,"  said  the  man, 

with  sulky  insolence. 

The  disinterment  was  soon  completed.  Brent  saw  his 
own  identity  disc  taken  out  of  the  grave  and  handed  to 
the  officer,  and  a  sudden  curiosity  moved  him.  He  edged 
close  and  looked  over  the  little  officer's  shoulder  at  the 
red  circle  lying  in  his  palm.  The  Tommy  had  cleaned  the 
disc  by  spitting  upon  it  and  rubbing  it  on  his  breeches. 

597641  Pte.  Brent,  P. 
-Fusiliers. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  283 

The  officer  brought  out  a  note-book  and  entered  the 
details,  while  the  men  put  what  was  left  of  Beckett  into 
the  wooden  shell  that  they  had  brought  in  the  waggon. 
Brent  stood  and  looked  at  the  hole  in  the  ground.  He 
was  thinking  of  that  morning  in  March  when  Beckett  had 
been  killed.  He  remembered  the  frost  on  the  grass,  the 
sunlight,  the  stillness,  the  white  splinters  of  the  apple 
tree,  the  hob-nails  in  the  soles  of  Beckett's  boots.  The 
memory  carried  him  to  Manon,  Manon  who  was  alive, 
Manon  who  loved  him.  He  turned  away  and  walked 
back  to  the  house,  conscious  of  an  immense  gratitude  to 
her,  of  a  tenderness  that  had  felt  the  taunt  of  some  unclean 
act  and  rushed  to  purify  itself  in  her  presence.  How  clean 
and  wholesome  and  human  she  was!  Those  dirty,  soul- 
less men  in  khaki  spitting  into  Beckett's  grave;  those 
conscript  grave-diggers  turning  over  the  bones  of  a  dead 
valour ! 

Manon  heard  him  enter  the  house.  She  was  upstairs. 
Something  in  her  seemed  to  divine  his  mood.  She  called 
to  him. 

"Paul,  I  am  here." 

He  climbed  the  steep  staircase  that  he  had  built,  and 
found  himself  in  her  room — their  room.  And,  suddenly, 
her  arms  went  round  him.  She  held  him  close  with  all 
her  sturdy,  human  strength,  and  drew  his  face  down  to  her 
shoulder. 

"My  man  has  such  a  soft  heart." 

He  turned  his  head,  and  with  an  emotion  that  was  very 
near  to  tears,  kissed  her  warm  throat. 

"It  might  have  happened  some  other  day." 

She  smiled  over  him  compassionately. 

"Well,  it  is  over.  That  mound  there  in  the  orchard 
always  made  me  a  little  sad.  Now,  look,  all  this  is  yours 
and  mine;  it  is  ours." 

She  made  him  look  round  the  room  at  the  new  bed 
with  its  clean  linen  and  red  duvet,  the  rugs  on  the  floor, 
the  curtains  that  she  had  tacked  up  at  the  windows. 


284  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE 

"It  is  alive,"  she  said,  "our  little  home." 

He  held  her  close,  and  they  stood  with  heads  bowed, 
as  though  praying. 

In  the  street  a  blind  man  led  by  a  small  boy  had 
stopped  outside  the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire,  and  was  turning 
his  sightless  face  to  it  with  a  hatred  that  had  inward  eyes, 

"It  is  a  fine  house  they  have  now,"  said  the  boy; 
"the  door  looks  as  green  as  an  apple." 

Bibi  said  nothing.  The  boy  led  him  away  down  the 
Rue  de  Picardie,  and  neither  Manon  nor  Paul  knew  that 
Bibi  had  passed  their  house. 


xxxvni 

THESE  is  more  folly  than  sin  in  the  world — but  an  evil 
man  takes  folly  and  uses  it — and  in  the  process  makes  it 
evil. 

These  factory  workers  came  and  drank  at  Louis  Blanc's 
buvette.  They  talked  and  talked  extravagantly  as  some 
men  talk  after  a  war — and  there  were  bad  men  among 
them.  Mademoiselle  Barbe,  who  was  as  clever  and  as 
careful  as  a  cat,  and  who  had  nothing  but  scorn  for 
eloquent  fools,  kept  her  eyes  in  particular  on  Pompom 
Crapaud  and  Lazare  Ledoux. 

Little  Crapaud  was  as  ugly  as  his  name,  an  undersized 
little  devil  with  a  broken  nose  and  dissipated  blue  eyes. 
He  was  always  laughing,  and  when  he  laughed  he  made  a 
noise  like  a  goat.  Crapaud  had  been  in  prison  for  some 
particularly  filthy  crime.  He  had  worked  on  "munitions" 
during  the  war. 

Ledoux  was  different.  He  was  like  a  lean  dog  that 
had  been  flayed  alive,  and  was  all  red  flesh  and  staring 
eyes.  He  was  raw  both  within  and  without.  He  gave  the 
impression  of  a  man  who  was  always  leaning  forward  to 
seize  something  or  to  spit  in  an  enemy's  face.  He  talked 
like  a  "flame-thrower,"  and  his  eyes  grew  more  and  more 
red  as  he  talked.  You  could  see  the  venom  swelling  in 
that  long,  lean  throat  of  his — his  hands  clawed  ready  to 
tear  and  to  destroy.  His  black  hair  seemed  to  stand  on 
end — electrified.  He  was  always  dirty,  and  smelt  of  stale 
sweat. 

Ledoux  was  a  "Red."  He  had  been  born  and  bred  a 
"Red";  it  was  his  natural  colour.  He  had  an  infinite 
capacity  for  hating  anything  and  everything  that  smelt 
a  little  sweeter  than  himself.  He  called  all  clean,  good- 


286          THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

natured,  orderly  people  "capitalists"  or  "bourgeois."  He 
hated  anyone  who  worked  hard,  or  who  was  thrifty.  He 
hated  all  peasants,  especially  those  peasants  who  owned 
land. 

That  chance  gossip  with  old  Cordonnier  had  given 
Bibi  an  idea,  and  in  the  bitter  darkness  of  these  sum- 
mer days  he  sat  there  like  a  spider  spinning  a  web.  He 
listened  to  these  roughs  talking  "communism."  Ledoux 
was  an  orator;  he  made  speeches — malignant,  violent 
speeches  that  were  very  pleasant  to  discontented  men  who 
preferred  the  new  humanitarian  theories  to  the  merciless 
facts  of  life.  Ledoux  had  all  the  old  clap-trap  dogmas, 
and  Crapaud — who  was  his  dog — yapped  applause. 

"The  workers  create  everything  with  their  hands.  All 
capitalists  are  thieves.  Everything  should  belong  to  the 
workers." 

He  had  the  usual  sentimental  view  of  the  noble  work- 
man joyfully  pouring  forth  sweat  for  the  sake  of  all  the 
other  workers  in  the  world. 

"Never  will' you  see  such  labour — such  wonderful  things 
done,  such  a  mass  of  riches  for  everybody." 

Bibi  listened  to  Ledoux.  He  was  one  great  silent  sneer, 
but  he  never  let  Ledoux  know  that  he  was  sneering.  At 
night,  when  the  men  had  gone  off  and  the  buvette  was 
shut  up,  he  and  Barbe  would  discuss  Ledoux  and  roar 
with  laughter.  Barbe  was  a  mimic.  She  knew  exactly 
what  life  was,  and  what  men  are,  and  that  Ledoux  would 
have  been  much  less  of  a  fool  if  he  had  not  been  so  re- 
pulsive to  women. 

"What  nonsense !"  she  said ;  "that  fellow  has  never  been 
allowed  to  kiss  a  pretty  girl.  T  should  say  that  women 
don't  like  him — so  he  is  one  of  the  mangy  dogs  with  a 
sore  head." 

She  had  placed  her  finger  on  the  inflamed  core  of 
Lazare  Ledoux's  discontent.  He  had  failed  to  get  what 
he  had  thirsted  for  in  life,  and  his  red  eyes  had  blazed. 
Jle  preached  love,  love  of  the  people  who  were  like  him- 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  287 

self — and  he  was  the  very  essence  of  hatred.  The  blood 
of  his  ideals  was  envy. 

It  is  easy  for  a  bad  man  to  understand  the  nonsensical 
malignity  of  such  a  theorist's  dogmatism.  Good-natured 
people  are  apt  to  be  moved  by  the  fanatic's  enthusiasm, 
his  burning  words,  his  apparent  altruism.  He  offers 
freedom,  noble  and  more  spacious  lives.  He  talks  of  the 
"children  of  to-morrow."  And  Bibi,  rogue  that  he  was, 
laughed  at  Ledoux,  and  his  laughter  was  justified. 

"Voila!"  he  said;  "give  these  gentlemen  their  food 
and  their  wine  and  other  people's  houses — and  then  ask 
them  to  sweat  for  the  good  of  humanity!  How  much 
work  will  they  do  ?  Precious  little.  They  will  loaf  about 
and  talk  all  day,  and  make  the  shopkeepers  clean  the 
streets.  ..." 

"Most  men  are  lazy,"  said  Barbe,  "it  is  the  women  and 
the  children  who  matter.  An  empty  stomach  is  man's 
master." 

But  if  Bibi  despised  Ledoux  and  Crapaud  and  the 
crowd  who  listened  to  them,  he  saw  that  it  might  be  pos- 
sible for  him  to  make  use  of  their  passions.  These  men 
were  firebrands,  wolves.  They  talked  internationalism, 
worshipped  Lenin,  yet  hated  the  Germans.  Ledoux  was 
more  venomous  than  usual  when  he  spoke  of  the  German 
Socialists.  He  had  not  forgotten  what  he  had  suffered 
in  the  trenches — for  Ledoux  was  a  physical  coward  and 
sordid  fear  does  not  breed  love.  He  wan  ready  to  scream 
at  his  brethren  across  the  Rhine:  "Yes,  you  behaved 
like  swine.  You  were  ready  to  help  the  shopkeepers 
when  you  thought  you  were  going  to  plunder  our  shops. 
And  you  let  your  honest  men  be  put  in  prison." 

If  Bibi  had  the  civic  morals  of  a  house-agent,  he  was 
almost  as  successful  as  the  house-agent  in  trading  on  the 
good  nature  and  the  carelessness  of  the  average  man  and 
woman.  He  could  create  an  atmosphere,  spin  a  web,  and 
wait  for  the  flies  to  arrive.  He  set  himself  to  create  an 
atmosphere  about  the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire.  When  Ledoux 


288          THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

raged  against  the  capitalists  and  the  shopkeepers,  Bibi 
would  say,  "You  are  quite  right,  monsieur;  we  have 
them  here.  I  keep  a  shop  and  sell  wine;  but  what  can 
a  blind  man  do  ?" 

He  would  tap  the  ribbon  of  the  Croix  de  Guerre  that 
he  wore  on  his  coat. 

"Anyhow,  I  would  work  if  I  could,  and  I  picked  up 
this  in  the  war." 

They  fell  upon  Bibi's  neck  and  reassured  him.  He 
was  "bon  enfant" ;  he  could  tell  a  good  tale,  and  he  sold 
them  wine.  He  did  not  give  himself  airs.  Even  Ledoux 
liked  the  swaggering  frankness  of  the  man  who  called  the 
peasants  "the  muck  of  the  land." 

Bibi  spun  one  thread  at  a  time. 

"Of  course,  the  shopkeepers  will  do  anything.  Now 
look  at  these  people  in  the  cafe  over  there.  Do  you  know 
how  they  got  their  material  ?" 

The  buvette  asked,  "How?" 

"Stole  it.  They  came  back  to  the  village  before  any 
of  the  others.  There  were  some  army  huts  in  a  field. 
They  pulled  two  of  them  to  pieces  and  used  the  stuff." 

This  made  Ledoux  furious. 

"That's  individualism.  The  huts  belonged  to  the  com- 
munity." 

"That's  what  I  say.  Now,  take  this  hut  of  mine;  I 
bought  it ;  I  look  on  it  as  a  sort  of  pension,  a  box  for  an 
old  soldier." 

"There  is  nothing  wrong  in  that." 

Bibi  smiled  at  them  all. 

"And  the  boys  are  kind  to  me  and  drink  my  wine. 
Now  those  people  at  the  cafe  are  capitalists,  and  their 
capital  gave  them  a  start  of  everybody  else.  Is  not  that 
so,  monsieur  ?" 

He  turned  his  face  towards  Ledoux. 

"There's  the  infamy!"  Ledoux  was  standing  and 
reaching  out  with  his  hands.  "Even  in  a  place  like  this  the 
capitalist  has  all  the  advantages.  Look — a  ruined  village, 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTTJKE  289 

all  the  poor  people  coming  back!  Everybody  ought  to 
start  on  equal  terms — but  no !  Back  comes  your  capitalist 
and  your  shopkeeper,  and  they  have  their  feet  half-way 
up  the  ladder.  All  capital  should  be  confiscated." 

"What  about  the  factory  ?"  said  a  voice. 

"It  ought  to  belong  to  us.  Who  is  putting  it  in  order  ? 
Who  gives  the  sweat?" 

"That's  right,"  shouted  little  Crapaud;  "old  Goblet 
ought  to  be  paid  a  salary — or  wages — by  us.  Why  should 
he  have  fifty  thousand  francs  a  year  for  sitting  in  an 
office?" 

"Then  there  is  that  fellow  Durand,"  put  in  someone 
else. 

Bibi  waved  his  arms. 

"A  wash-out!  He  only  amuses  himself;  he  is  one  of 
the  sentimental  fools  who  is  getting  rid  of  his  money. 
But  what  makes  me  savage  is  the  smugness  of  the  people." 
He  was  working  to  bring  the  conversation  back  to  the 
Cafe  de  la  Victoire. 

"Smug !  Mon  Dieu !  They  look  down  on  us ;  we  are 
not  good  enough  to  mix  with  them.  Soon  they  will  be 
calling  their  place  an  hotel.  Why,  I  would  bet  you  that 
if  a  couple  of  you  boys  walked  into  that  place  and  asked 
for  a  drink,  they  would  not  serve  you." 

This  created  an  uproar. 

"Let  us  try  it,"  shouted  little  Crapaud.  "Here,  Lazare, 
you  and  I  will  go  round  to-morrow  and  put  the  wind  up 
these  aristos." 

Ledoux  showed  his  teeth. 

"I  have  no  objection." 

"You  will  be  turned  out,"  said  Bibi. 

Crapaud  and  the  orator  put  Bibi's  prophecy  to  an 
experimental  test.  They  strolled  in  the  cool  of  the  eve- 
ning to  Manon's  cafe,  and  saw  Manon  herself  standing  on 
the  path  admiring  the  new  sign-board  that  Paul  had  put 
up  that  very  morning.  Brent  was  working  in  the  garden, 
and  the  wall  hid  him  from  view. 


290          THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

It  was  Crapaud  who  did  the  talking.  Ledoux  was  use- 
less with  women,  being  too  uncouth  and  too  sombre  a 
beast. 

"Good  evening,  madame;  we  have  come  to  try  your 
wine." 

Manon  looked  at  them.  She  had  never  seen  these  two 
men  before. 

"I  am  sorry,  monsieur,  but  my  cafe  has  been  closed 
for  a  week.  We  have  been  too  busy." 

Crapaud  winked  at  his  comrade. 

"Then  what  is  that  sign  doing  up  there?  All  that 
gold  lettering  looks  very  inviting." 

She  did  not  reply  to  Crapaud,  but  entered  the  house 
with  the  finality  of  a  Frenchwoman  who  does  not  argue 
about  her  authority  in  her  own  home.  Ledoux's  red  eyes 
looked  evil,  but  then  Ledoux  was  a  coward. 

"Bourgeoise !"     He  used  a  foul  word. 

Pompom  Crapaud  had  the  physical  audacity  that 
Ledoux  lacked.  He  jumped  up  on  to  the  path,  entered 
the  cafe,  and,  walking  into  the  kitchen,  sat  down  in  Paul's 
arm-chair.  A  minute  later  Manon  found  him  there,  a 
cigarette  hanging  out  of  the  corner  of  his  mouth,  and  hia 
cap  over  one  eye. 

"What  do  you  want,  monsieur?" 

"A  drink." 

Manon  kept  her  temper. 

"I  have  told  you  that  my  cafe"  is  not  open,  and  this  is 
my  kitchen." 

"You  had  better  take  that  board  down,"  said  Crapaud ; 
"I  protest  that  I  have  the  right  to  sit  here  as  long  as  it 
remains  up." 

Manon  looked  at  him,  and  went  for  Paul.  She  ex- 
plained the  situation  to  him,  and  Brent  attacked  it  good- 
temperedly.  He  walked  into  the  kitchen  and  smiled  at 
Pompom  Crapaud. 

"I  think  you  have  made  a  mistake,  monsieur." 

Brent's  smile  annoyed  the  pirate 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  291 

"It  is  your  sign-board  that  is  making  the  mistake." 

"Even  the  sign-board  does  not  give  you  the  right  to 
sit  in  madame's  kitchen." 

"I  sit  here,"  was  Crapaud's  retort.  "Make  what  you 
can  of  that." 

Brent  made  so  little  of  it  that  he  took  Crapaud  by 
the  collar  and  transferred  him  to  the  street.  The  little 
man  had  no  more  strength  than  a  half-grown  chicken,  and 
he  went  quietly  enough. 

But  he  swore  at  Ledoux. 

"Here,  you  are  a  pretty  pal;  you  are  bigger  than  he 
is." 

Ledoux  glanced  at  Brent,  and  fidgeted  his  hands  in 
hie  pockets,  but  he  did  not  attack. 

"Well,  we  have  found  them  out,  haven't  we?" 

"Name  of  a  dog — but — I — found  them  in!" 

They  went  off  quarrelling  up  the  street. 

Other  and  more  sinister  incidents  enlarged  and  filled 
in  the  outlines  of  the  feud  that  was  growing  in  Beaucourt. 
There  was  the  affair  of  the  Bois  du  Renard,  an  outrage 
that  made  old  Anatole  Durand  go  down  and  deliver  a 
speech  in  the  Place  de  1'Eglise.  A  few  nights  later  there 
was  a  scrimmage  in  the  Rue  Bonniere  in  which  young 
Frangois  Guiveau  had  his  jaw  broken.  It  was  followed 
by  the  incident  of  the  attack  on  Luce  Philipon  as  she  was 
walking  home  alone  in  the  dark  along  the  Rosieres  road. 
Her  father  had  gone  to  meet  her,  and  he  caught  the  two 
louts  trying  to  drag  the  girl  into  a  field.  The  blacksmith 
was  a  very  powerful  man,  and  he  beat  both  these  young 
roughs  senseless  with  his  fists.  One  of  them  had  tried  to 
knife  him,  and  Beaucourt  never  forgot  that  picture  of 
Philipon  tiailing  the  lout  by  the  arm  all  the  way  up  the 
Rue  de  Picardie  and  along  the  Bonniere  road  to  the  fac- 
tory. There  was  a  crowd  outside  Bibi's  buvette,  but  no  one 
tried  to  rescue  the  trailing,  bumping  figure.  Philipon 
threw  the  fellow  over  the  factory  gate.  He  was  pulp, 
and  had  to  be  taken  to  Amiens  in  a  waggon. 


292  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

Lefebre  and  Durand  deplored  these  happenings.  They 
turned  their  eyes  towards  Louis  Blanc's  buvette,  and  saw 
in  it  a  storm-centre,  a  Pandora's  box,  a  pest-house. 

"We  shall  have  to  try  and  get  rid  of  that  fellow." 

Durand's  hair  bristled. 

"And  Goblet's  men  will  start  a  riot.  I  think  we  are 
strong  enough  to  give  them  a  surprise.  I  wish  I  could 
buy  that  factory." 


XXXIX 

BRENT  had  been  at  work  in  the  chateau,  putting  one 
of  the  "wings"  in  repair  against  the  winter,  when  that 
yellow  English  touring-car  pulled  up  outside  the  Cafe  de 
la  Victoire.  It  was  a  big  car,  and  it  contained,  besides 
the  chauffeur,  a  manufacturer  from  the  Midlands,  his 
family,  and  its  appendages. 

They  were  all  gathered  on  the  footpath,  a  big  red  man 
in  a  grey  flannel  suit,  three  women  rather  elaborately 
dressed,  a  "flapper"  with  red  hair,  and  a  small  boy  with 
eyes  like  blue  marbles.  The  women  had  white,  puffy 
faces.  They  stared  at  everything,  Manon,  the  house,  the 
resurrected  ruins,  Paul  Brent,  the  scattering  of  children, 
as  though  they  were  staring  at  things  in  a  shop-window. 
There  was  a  quite  extraordinary  lack  of  animation  or  in- 
telligence about  them.  They  looked  overfed,  replete, 
satiated. 

The  man  was  trying  to  explain  that  they  wanted  five 
bedrooms  and  late  dinner.  And  was  there  a  lock-up  garage 
for  the  car? 

"Mais,  non,  monsieur,  c'est  impossible." 

She  looked  relieved  when  Paul  joined  them. 

"My  fiance  speaks  a  little  English." 

They  all  looked  at  Brent  as  though  he  were  some  sort 
of  savage.  He  heard  one  of  the  women  remark  that  it 
was  probable  that  the  beds  would  be  dirty,  and  that  the 
agent  at  Amiens  had  told  them  a  lot  of  lies. 

Brent  was  annoyed.  He  spoke  to  the  man  in  Eng- 
lish. 

"We  can  give  you  a  simple  meal  and  two  bedrooms. 
As  you  see,  we  are  very  busy  here." 

The  small  boy  and  the  flapper  giggled. 
293 


294  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

"We'll  have  to  sleep  in  the  car,  pa." 

"But  it's  absurd,"  said  the  fattest  of  the  three  women, 
"We  were  told  at  Amiens  that  we  could  put  up  here. 
Of  course,  if  these  French  people  don't  want  us  or  our 
money " 

They  held  a  family  council  on  Manon's  doorstep,  and 
the  fact  emerged  that  two  of  the  women  had  made  up 
their  minds  that  they  wanted  to  spend  the  night  in  a  dev- 
astated village.  It  would  make  ornamental  conversation 
at  home.  The  man  was  neutral;  he  had  never  been  in 
France  before,  and  though  of  military  age,  had  functioned 
very  successfully  on  the  home  front.  The  chauffeur,  an 
ex-soldier,  listened  with  an  air  of  interested  cynicism  to 
the  argument. 

"All  right,"  said  the  Midlander;  "you  give  us  three 
rooms  and  we  can  manage." 

Paul  translated  the  proposal  to  Manon. 

"But  you  would  have  to  turn  out" 

"I  could  sleep  in  the  cellar  for  a  night.  Leave  it  to 
me.  They  shall  pay  through  the  nose." 

He  turned  to  the  man. 

"Fifty  francs  each  for  the  night.  That  will  be  three 
hundred  and  fifty  francs." 

The  white,  flaccid  faces  of  the  women  showed  a  first 
nicker  of  animation. 

"Fifty  francs  each !" 

"But  it's  outrageous!  We  paid  half  that  at  Amiens 
for  the  whole  day." 

"But  think  of  the  rate  of  exchange,"  said  Brent ;  "and 
this  is  not  Amiens." 

The  man  looked  uncomfortable.  He  was  not  so  hard 
as  his  satiated  women — and  France  had  filled  him  with 
vague  qualms. 

"Harriet,  you  know,  these  people  have  suffered  a 
lot." 

His  wife  looked  at  him  with  oblique  contempt. 

"Oh — well — if  you  feel  like  throwing  money  about !  I 
suppose  wine  will  be  included." 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  295 

"Wine  is  an  extra,  madame." 

Her  eyes  said,  "Bobber,  and  after  all  we  English 
have  done  for  you !" — but  her  man  made  up  his  mind 
not  to  argue.  Somehow  Beaucourt  was  too  big  for 
him. 

"All  right.     Show  us  the  rooms." 

Brent  surrendered  the  party  to  Manon,  and  piloted 
the  chauffeur  and  the  yellow  car  into  the  yard.  As  he 
switched  off  the  engine,  the  ex-Tommy  gave  Paul  a 
brotherly  grin. 

"You  stuck  'em  all  right.     Good  biz." 

It  was  an  unfortunate  coincidence,  but  the  unpleasant 
impression  stamped  upon  the  consciousness  of  Beaucourt 
by  these  New  English  reacted  upon  the  popularity  of  the 
Cafe  de  la  Victoire.  It  was  the  stupidity  of  these  people, 
their  spiritual  obtuseness,  that  offended  the  French.  The 
whole  family  went  out  to  explore  the  village  as  though 
Beaucourt  were  the  "White  City."  They  had  paid  their 
entrance  money,  and  they  had  come  to  stare.  There  was 
something  insolent  in  their  largeness,  and  in  the  largeness 
of  the  car.  Their  very  clothes  were  offensive  in  Beaucourt. 
They  strolled,  they  talked  in  loud  voices,  they  pointed. 
They  were  amused  by  the  wrong  things,  and  untouched 
by  wounds  that  should  have  made  them  ashamed.  There 
were  moments  when  the  man  appeared  awkward  and  un- 
comfortable, and  showed  a  disinclination  to  loiter.  The 
women  were  absolutely  insensitive.  Their  super-fatted 
souls  were  blind  to  the  sacrilege  of  certain  attitudes.  Two 
of  them  poked  their  heads  into  the  interior  of  Madame 
Poirel's  cottage.  It  was  one  of  the  side-shows,  and  they 
examined  it  with  the  eyes  of  cows.  Madame  Poirel  hap- 
pened to  be  sitting  in  her  chair,  patching  a  petticoat. 
She  had  lost  her  two  sons  in  the  war. 

"What  do  you  wish,  mesdames  ?" 

The  Englishwomen  did  not  realize  they  were  on  sacred 
ground,  standing  on  the  very  stone  where  Madame  Poirel's 
boys  had  sat  as  toddlers.  They  did  not  see  the  room  as  a 
place  of  memories,  a  dim  interior  that  was  almost  »  shrine. 


296          THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

They  stared.  They  made  remarks.  One  of  them  nodded 
casually  at  the  Frenchwoman. 

Madame  Poirel  got  up  and  very  calmly  closed  the  door. 

The  explorers  were  surprised — indignant. 

"Well,  what  manners !" 

"It's  quite  true  what  Kate  told  us.  The  French  hate 
us." 

"But  isn't  it  beastly  ungrateful  of  them  ?" 

"My  dear,  it's  all  a  question  of  coal." 

The  family  moved  on.  Madame  Poupart's  shop  amused 
them  immensely.  The  boy  pointed  it  out  with  a  finger 
of  scorn. 

"Ma,  look  at  the  rabbit-hutch!" 

"Shut  up,  Fred,"  said  his  father,  glimpsing  a  long  and 
yellow  face  at  the  window — the  austere  face  of  Madame 
Poupart. 

The  women  sided  with  the  boy. 

"Don't  be  so  touchy." 

"Aren't  we  here  to  see  things  ?" 

"I  don't  think  the  French  like  it,"  said  the  man. 

It  did  not  seem  to  matter  to  the  women  whether  the 
French  liked  it  or  not. 

The  English  always  visit  churches;  it  seems  to  be  a 
habit  with  them,  and  the  Hoskyn  family  had  the  unique 
experience  of  seeing  a  French  priest,  wrapped  up  in  an 
old  sheet,  diligently  whitewashing  the  walls  of  his  church. 
They  did  not  recognize  Monsieur  Lefebre  as  a  priest, 
associating  clericalism  with  an  appearance  of  blackness 
and  physical  inactivity.  The  boy  dabbled  his  fingers  in 
the  piscina,  and  had  to  be  told  to  take  off  his  cap. 

Monsieur  Lefebre  was  a  polite  soul,  nor  was  he  con- 
scious of  any  lack  of  dignity.  He  turned  about  and, 
whitewash  brush  in  hand,  gave  the  Hoskyn  family  a 
jocund  smile  and  a  slight  bow.  He  was  met  with  obtuse 
stares. 

"The  verger — I  suppose." 

"There's  nothing  to  see  here,  John,  and  that  fellow 
will  be  after  a  tip." 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  297 

They  sailed  out,  leaving  Monsieur  Lefebre  with  up- 
raised eyebrows  and  an  expression  of  amused  and  irre- 
sponsible gaiety. 

The  family  walked  along  the  Eue  de  Bonniere  and  dis- 
covered Bibi's  buvette.  It  suggested  a  chicken-house, 
and  they  paused  in  the  road  to  stare  at  it,  a  compliment 
that  was  returned  by  the  men  who  happened  to  be  in  the 
hut.  Ledoux,  Crapaud  and  several  others  crowded  to  the 
door.  The  self-evident  contrasts  of  life  provoked  an  in- 
stinctive hostility — and  civilization  was  in  the  melting- 
pot. 

"Voilales  anglais!" 

"They  arrived  in  a  big  automobile;  I  saw  them.  Con- 
spuez  les  profiteers !" 

"Yes,  and  they  are  lodging  at  the  Cafe  de  la  Vie- 
toire." 

Bibi  pushed  his  way  to  the  door,  feeling  the  arms  and 
shoulders  of  the  men.  Ledoux  was  speaking  with  a  snarl 
in  his  voice. 

"Capitalists,  look  at  them !  Fat  and  rich,  blood-suckers, 
tradesmen.  We  are  monkeys  in  a  cage,  are  we?  Get 
out!" 

He  shook  his  fist  at  the  Hoskyn  family,  and  with  out- 
raged ideals  they  moved  on. 

"These  French  are  savages!" 

"Why — we  might  be  Germans!" 

The  men  at  the  doorway  of  the  buvette  continued  to 
discuss  the  presence  of  these  English  in  Beaucourt  and 
Bibi,  leaning  a  hand  on  the  shoulders  of  Crapaud  and 
Ledoux,  turned  their  passions  towards  the  Cafe  de  la 
Victoire. 

"There  you  are!  What  did  I  tell  you?  These  Eng- 
lish pay  well,  and  that  is  all  those  two  at  the  cafe  care 
about.  They  did  not  build  their  place  for  decent  working- 
men,  but  to  make  money  out  of  the  rich  English  and 
Americans  who  come  to  stare  at  our  poverty." 

"You  have  touched  it,"  said  Crapaud;  "Bibi  goes 
straight  to  the  heart  of  things." 


298          THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

Ledoux  stretched  out  a  liand  that  was  like  the  clawed 
foot  of  a  bird. 

"Capitalists  ?  They  sell  everything.  They  ought  to  be 
kicked  out  of  Beaucourt." 

"Yes,  why  don't  we  smash  the  place  up  ?" 

Bibi  gave  a  kind  of  rolling  laugh. 

"That's  the  music.  But  wait  a  bit;  I  am  finding  out 
something  about  those  people ;  I  might  be  blind,  but  I  can 
see  through  a  wall.  Yes,  just  you  wait  a  bit,  my  lads,  and 
I  may  have  something  surprising  to  tell  you.  Then  we'll 
make  a  night  of  it,  and  send  up  the  balloon." 

If  Beaucourt  was  moved  to  some  resentment  against 
Manon  for  taking  these  English  into  her  house,  Manon 
herself  soon  saw  too  much  of  them.  She  had  sent  for  a 
girl  to  help  her,  and  these  two  Frenchwomen  cooked,  and 
made  beds,  arranged  a  table  for  six,  and  did  their  best 
to  make  the  tourists  comfortable.  About  sunset,  Paul 
was  at  work  in  the  garden  when  Manon  came  out  to  him, 
a  Manon  who  was  wholesomely  and  humanly  angry. 

"Mon  Dieu,  but  they  are  impossible!  They  have  no 
manners." 

"What  has  happened,  cherie  ?" 

"Happened!  Nothing  has  happened,  but  everything 
is  wrong.  I  can  understand  their  grumbling.  But  they 
swarm  in  and  behave  as  though  the  house  belonged  to 
them;  they  shout  down  the  stairs  at  me,  'Femme  de 
chambre,  ici,  toute  de  suite!'  They  ask  for  all  sorts  of 
impossible  things,  and  the  women  look  at  me  like  angry 
cows." 

Paul  tried  to  comfort  her.  He  felt  rather  responsible 
for  these  English. 

"They  have  made  a  lot  of  money  during  the  war,  and 
they  don't  know  how  to  behave.  They  are  leaving  to- 
morrow." 

"Thank  God !    Paul,  are  all  the  English  like  that  ?" 

"Heavens!  no,"  he  said.  "We  are  very  decent  folk 
when  we  are  not  too  rich.  The  bother  is  that  people  like 
,tnat  are  so  damnably  stupid." 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUBE  299 

She  snuggled  into  the  hollow  of  his  arm. 

"My  Paul,  I  love  this  place  so  much.  It  hurts  me  to 
have  such  people  in  it." 

"Well,  we  will  have  no  more.  That's  very  simple. 
I  like  them  as  little  as  you  do." 

The  girl  who  had  come  to  help  Manon  appeared  sud- 
denly in  the  garden. 

"Oh,  madame,  o-la-la,  ces  anglais !" 

The  Hoskyn  family  had  demanded  baths. 

"Baths,  baths  for  six !    Do  they  think  this  is  London  ?" 

Brent  burst  out  laughing. 

"All  right;  leave  it  to  me.  When  do  they  want  the 
hot  water?" 

"At  ten  o'clock,  monsieur." 

"Tell  them  it  shall  be  there." 

Punctually  at  ten  o'clock  Paul  deposited  a  tea-cup 
full  of  hot  water  outside  each  door.  He  knocked  at 
Mr.  Hoskyn's  door.  It  was  the  lady  who  opened  it,  ex- 
pecting something  in  petticoats  and  not  a  man.  She  wore 
a  lace  nightcap,  and  a  pink  silk  dressing-gown. 

"What's  this?" 

"The  water  for  the  bath,  madame,"  said  Paul  with 
complete  solemnity;  "we  shall  not  charge  for  it  in  the 
bill." 


XL 

THE  house  was  finished,  or  as  good  as  finished,  and  then 
something  happened  to  Paul  Brent. 

He  had  been  like  a  child  absorbed  in  a  game,  building 
castles  on  the  sands  with  a  playmate  to  help  him,  con- 
scious of  the  sea  and  the  sky  as  a  spacious  blueness ;  of 
the  schoolroom  and  the  copy-book  he  had  thought  but 
little.  The  house  was  finished.  There  was  a  pause.  He 
stood  up,  feeling  a  sudden  sense  of  fateful  melancholy 
spreading  across  the  sands.  He  seemed  to  hear  voices. 
He  looked  into  the  eyes  of  his  playmate — and  awoke. 

It  had  been  raining,  but  the  evening  sky  had  cleared 
when  Manon  went  out  to  search  for  her  man  and  found 
him  sitting  on  the  bank  of  the  stream  with  his  back  against 
a  poplar  tree,  and  his  feet  close  to  the  water.  He  did  not 
near  hei-  footsteps,  and  she  stood  still  a  moment,  looking 
at  him. 

He  appeared  to  be  watching  the  water,  yet  she  imagined 
that  he  did  not  see  it,  that  he  was  not  aware  of  its  move- 
ment. He  looked  infinitely  sad.  She  had  a  curious  im- 
pression of  him  as  having  been  removed  to  a  great  distance 
from  her ;  and  yet  never  had  he  seemed  so  near. 

"Cheri,"  she  said  softly,  guessing  that  the  panic  mo- 
ment had  come,  and  that  her  man  was  awake. 

Paul  turned  his  head  very  slowly,  as  though  it  was  not 
easy  for  him  to  meet  her  eyes. 

"Hallo !     Come  and  sit  down." 

She  sat  down  close  to  him. 

"Well,  you  will  tell  me,"  she  said,  "of  what  you  ar» 
thinking  ?" 

He  hesitated,  his  hands  resting  rather  helplessly  on 
his  knees. 

"I  was  thinking  what  a  mess  I  had  made  of  thingg." 
too 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  301 

She  had  known  that  this  awakening  must  come;  this 
pain  of  the  conscience.  She  had  foreseen  it,  and  she  waa 
prepared ;  she  was  there  at  his  side. 

"You  are  thinking  of  our  marriage  ?" 

"Yes." 

"Well?" 

Her  voice  was  very  soft  and  curiously  tranquil.  She 
did  not  attempt  to  caress  him,  or  even  to  touch  him 
with  her  hands.  She  knew  that  it  would  hurt,  and  that 
there  were  moments  when  this  man  had  the  soul  of  a 
fanatic. 

"What  have  I  been  doing  all  these  months  ?" 

He  appeared  to  ask  himself  the  question,  and  she 
answered  it. 

"Making  me  very  happy.  And  now,  suddenly,  the 
game  is  over.  We  were  like  children.  And  now,  you 
wish  to  tell  the  truth." 

He  raised  his  eyes  and  looked  at  her  with  a  kind  of 
astonished  awe. 

"How  did  you  know?" 

She  touched  his  sleeve  with  the  tip  of  one  forefinger. 

"How?  Why — was  it  not  inevitable?  It  was  bound 
to  happen  to  you ;  I  knew  that  when  I  came  to  realize  the 
sort  of  man  you  are.  Well,  I  am  quite  ready.  You 
may  tell  me  the  truth.  We  will  go  and  see  Monsieur 
Lefebre." 

He  rested  his  chin  on  his  hands  and  stared  at  the 
water. 

"It's  amazing,"  he  said. 

"What  is,  cheri  ?" 

"Your— your " 

"Calmness?" 

"Yes,  that.  And  your  generosity,  and  the  way  you 
understand." 

She  gave  a  little,  touching  laugh. 

"To  get  married — in  France — one  has  to  exercise  much 
common-sense.  People  ask  questions,  demand  papers. 
Of  course  there  were  moments — quite  long  ago — when 


302  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVEJSTTUKE 

I  was  not  sure  whether  you  would  ever  want  to  tell  the 
truth.  And — of  course — a  woman " 

He  looked  at  her  with  a  quick,  brave  deepening  of  the 
eyes. 

"Manon  —  you  mean  ?  What  would  you  have 
done ?" 

She  stared  at  the  water,  quite  still,  her  lips  pressed 
firmly  together. 

"I  don't  know,"  she  said  presently;  "do  not  ask  me 
to  tell  you." 

Paul  Brent  was  much  moved.  He  had  been  in  such  a 
confusion  of  remorse,  self-accusation,  loneliness  and  pain, 
that  he  had  been  capable  of  obeying  any  rash  impulse  that 
raised  a  cry  of  retrocession.  For  the  moment  the  only 
possible  future  for  him  had  seemed  exile  from  Beaucourt. 
He  would  have  to  shoulder  his  knapsack  and  disappear. 
And  then  Manon  had  come  to  him,  calm,  practical  and 
tender.  She  seemed  to  have  touched  him  with  a  cool  and 
soothing  hand.  There  was  nothing  that  he  could  not  say 
to  her  or  she  to  him. 

"How  you  help  a  man,"  he  said. 

She  moved  close  to  him  and  into  the  hollow  of  his  arm, 
and  they  sat  there  under  the  poplar  while  the  dusk  came 
down,  and  the  water  grew  dark  and  mysterious. 

"You  thought  of  running  away,  cheri  ?" 

"Yes." 

"How  much  more  cruel  that  would  have  been  to  me! 
What  would  people  have  said,  and  how  humiliated  I 
should  have  felt.  I  would  rather  you  told  the  truth." 

"You  are  not  afraid  of  it  ?" 

"No." 

He  turned  her  face  to  his  and  kissed  her. 

"Little  woman,  it  seems  the  only  way  out.  Life's  so 
queer.  When  I  began  this  adventure  and  started  that 
harmless  lie,  I  never  thought  that  it  would  end  like  this. 
I  shall  have  to  clean  the  slate  again,  and  that  means 
England  and  more  trouble.  Still,  there  it  is." 

"But  you  are  doing  it  for  me." 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  303 

"And  for  myself,  too.    Let's  be  honest" 

She  snuggled  close. 

"Cheri,"  she  said,  "they  cannot  do  anything  very  ter- 
rible to  you,  can  they?" 

Brent  looked  at  the  dark  water.  There  was  a  slight 
rustling  of  the  leaves  of  the  poplar. 

"I  suppose  I'm  a  deserter,  but  desertion  when  a  fel- 
low is  due  to  be  demobilized  isn't  very  serious.  Then, 
I  impersonated  another  man,  though  Beckett  wasn't  hurt 
by  it.  He  was  a  lone  man.  And  then,  of  course,  I  have 
upset  the  records  and  returns;  that's  about  the  worst 
crime  you  can  commit  in  the  army." 

He  laughed. 

"You  see,  I'm  dead.  They  may  refuse  to  let  me  come 
to  life  again.  And  the  official  letters  that  will  be  written 
—and  the  fuss !" 

She  laughed  with  him — glad  of  this  happier  mood. 

"Why,  after  all,  cheri,  it  is  only  a  great  joke.  You 
have  done  nobody  any  harm,  and  think  of  how  you  have 
helped  us  in  Beaucourt.  We  shall  have  good  friends  here. 
They,  too,  will  see  the  joke,  this  great  human  adventure. 
No  one  will  bear  you  any  malice." 

"There  is  Bibi,"  he  said. 

"What  can  Bibi  do  ?" 

She  sent  him  to  bed  comforted  and  utterly  in  love  with 
her  loyalty  and  her  generous  common-sense.  She  was  a 
little  woman  whose  sturdiness  helped  a  man — for  most 
men  are  little  more  than  big  children,  and  the  woman 
who  loves  a  man  is  also  his  mother.  Manon  refused  to 
utter  tragic  cries  and  to  dissolve  into  passionate  and 
romantic  misery.  Her  capable  hands  pulled  the  knot  to 
pieces.  She  had  faith  in  her  common-sense. 

"We  will  tell  the  truth,"  she  said,  "and  look  happy 
over  it.  A  smile  goes  such  a  long  way.  If  you  sneak 
about  looking  miserable,  the  world  invents  scandals  to 
account  for  your  looks.  It  may  be  that  you  will  have 
to  go  to  England,  cheri,  but  I  shall  trust  you  to  come 
back." 


304          THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE 

She  took  the  whole  affair  in  hand,  for  women  are  more 
courageous  than  men.  Anatole  Durand  and  Monsieur 
Lefebre  should  be  told,  but  they  went  first  to  Monsieur 
Lefebre.  It  was  after  supper  and  before  dusk  when  they 
walked  up  to  the  church  and  found  Monsieur  Lefebre  re- 
pairing the  floor  of  the  pulpit.  Through  the  broken  west 
window  of  the  church  the  sky  showed  all  yellow,  and 
the  light  was  on  Manon's  face  as  she  stood  by  the  pulpit 
steps. 

"We  have  come  to  confess,"  she  said,  "and  to  ask  for 
your  advice." 

Lefebre  looked  at  them  both — Manon  honest  and  sturdy 
— Paul  a  little  shy  and  obscured.  He  had  grown  fond 
of  these  two,  and  his  sympathies  were  alarmed. 

"What  is  it,  children  ?"  he  asked. 

"We  wish  to  be  married,"  said  Manon,  "but  we  cannot 
be  married  until  we  have  told  the  truth." 

Monsieur  Lefebre  took  them  into  the  sacristy,  which 
was  also  his  kitchen,  bedroom  and  salon.  He  gave  Manon 
and  Paul  the  two  chairs,  and  sat  on  the  box-bed  that 
had  been  brought  from  one  of  the  huts.  His  serious  face 
troubled  Paul  Brent. 

"Now  what  is  the  difficulty  ?" 

His  dark,  jocund  eyes  looked  straight  at  Paul. 

"I  had  better  begin  from  the  beginning,  monsieur. 
It  is  all  my  fault." 

"No,  I  am  just  as  guilty  as  he  is,"  said  Manon. 

Monsieur  Lefebre  looked  pained.  He  had  certainly 
been  guilty  of  favouritism  in  his  spiritual  attitude  towards 
these  two,  and  here  they  were  confessing  some  secret  sin. 

"Let  Paul  speak " 

But  Manon  read  his  face. 

"Yes,  monsieur,  but  I  wish  you  to  understand  that 
nothing  has  ever  happened  between  us.  He  has  been  more 
honourable  and  gentle  to  me  than  any  man  I  could  have 
dreamed  of.  He  is  a  good  man,  from  heart  to  head." 

She  gave  Paul  a  very  wonderful  look. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  305 

"Now,  tell  Monsieur  Lefebre  everything." 

And  Paul  told  him,  beginning  with  his  life  before  the 
war,  and  then  linking  it  to  that  March  morning  when  he 
had  been  tempted  to  lose  his  old  self  in  Beckett's  death. 
He  watched  Monsieur  Lefebre's  face  as  he  made  his  con- 
fession, as  though  the  mirror  of  this  man's  humanity 
would  show  him  the  very  judgment  of  God.  Lefebre  sat 
with  his  head  a  little  forward,  his  face  very  grave  and 
somewhat  sad.  He  had  glanced  up  quickly  when  Paul 
had  confessed  that  he  was  English,  but  after  that  he  kept 
his  eyes  fixed  on  the  table  in  front  of  him.  The  sacristy 
began  to  grow  dim,  and  Lefebre's  face  grew  dim  with  it. 
A  feeling  of  solemnity  seemed  to  fill  the  place,  with  its 
rude,  home-made  furniture,  and  its  air  of  austerity.  Le- 
febre listened  and  said  nothing.  He  was  like  some  sombre 
figure  in  a  sanctuary,  obscure,  enigmatical,  waiting  to  give 
judgment. 

There  was  a  moment  when  Brent  faltered,  obsessed 
by  a  sudden  sense  of  loneliness.  His  left  arm  and  hand 
were  resting  on  the  table.  He  felt  something  touch  his 
fingers.  His  hand  closed  on  Manon's. 

His  heart  seemed  to  take  courage,  and  the  obscure 
figure  of  Lefebre  ceased  to  be  terrible. 

The  man  on  the  bed  began  to  ask  him  abrupt  questions. 

"You  are  a  widower?" 

"Yes." 

"And  this  man — whose  name  you  took — he  had  no 
wife,  mother,  or  children  ?" 

"No,  monsieur;  he  was  one  of  those  men  who  wander 
about  the  world  and  settle  nowhere." 

"And  when  you  came  to  Beaucourt,  you  had  no  idea 
that  it  would  end  like  this  ?" 

"No,  monsieur,  I  was  so  happy  working  here  for 
Manon  that  it  was  not  till  the  place  was  nearly 
finished " 

And  then,  quite  suddenly,  Monsieur  Lefebre  astonished 
them  both.  He  began  to  laugh,  the  generous,  rolling 


306  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

laughter  of  a  big,  human  creature  who  asks  of  God  that 
life  shall  not  be  mean. 

"You  children !"  he  said.    "You  children !" 

He  got  up,  waving  his  arms  like  benedictory  wings. 

"Where  is  my  candle?  And  the  matches.  Let  us 
have  light  here.  God  be  thanked  that  I  am  no  bigot. 
Moreover,  I  thank  you  two  children  for  coming  to  me." 

He  struck  a  light  and  lit  the  candle  that  was  stuck  on 
the  top  of  an  old  tin,  and  they  saw  that  his  eyes  were  all 
ashine,  and  his  rosy  face  happy. 

"But  you  gave  me  a  fright,  you  two.  Monsieur  Paul, 
masquerading  is  the  very  devil !" 

He  shook  a  forefinger  at  Brent. 

"So  you  will  tell  the  truth." 

"Monsieur,"  said  Paul,  "there  is  one  woman  whom  a 
liar  could  not  marry " 

"Cheri,  you  are  not  a  liar !" 

She  jumped  up  and  kissed  him,  and  Monsieur  Lefebre 
raised  his  hands  over  them. 

"Now,  we  must  be  serious.  Let  us  see  what  we  can 
make  of  this  tangle.  What  is  your  idea,  Paul  ?" 

"I  shall  have  to  surrender  myself  as  a  deserter,  mon- 
sieur. I  suppose  I  shall  be  sent  to  England.  If  they 
could  be  persuaded  to  look  at  it  as  you  have  done " 

"Well,  that  is  not  impossible.  The  great  thing  is  not 
to  be  in  a  hurry.  One  moment " 

He  pulled  a  note-book  towards  him,  opened  it,  and 
read  a  few  notes  that  were  neatly  written  at  the  top  of  one 
page.  He  reflected,  smiling. 

"May  I  tell  Monsieur  Durand  ?" 

"We  were  going  to  tell  him,"  said  Manon. 

"Good.  The  thing  is  for  some  of  us  to  interest  some- 
body else  in  the  affair,  and  for  all  of  us  to  give  Paul  such 
a  character  that  your  English  authorities  will  see  this  sin 
of  his  with  oair  eyes.  Sunday,  yes,  Sunday.  On  Sunday 
Monsieur  Durand  and  I  go  to  Amiens." 

He  closed  the  note-book,  and  smiled  at  them  both. 

"Let  us  keep  our  mouths  closed  for  a  week.     It  is 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  307 

possible  that  I  may  find  a  way  to  interest  somebody  in  our 
Englishman.  It  is  possible  that  we  ourselves  will  approach 
the  English  authorities.  Then  it  will  not  be  as  though 
you  went  to  them  as  a  deserter,  friendless,  unspoken 

He  sent  them  away  much  happier  than  they  had  come 
to  him,  which  is  the  best  thing  that  can  be  said  of  a 
man's  religion,  and  when  they  had  gone  he  blew  out 
his  candle  and  went  up  to  the  chateau  to  see  Anatole 
Durand. 

The  Place  de  1'Eglise  lay  in  darkness,  but  there  was  a 
light  in  the  post-mistress's  hut,  and  in  passing  it  Paul  and 
Manon  nearly  ran  against  big  Philipon,  who  had  come  to 
see  if  Monsieur  Talmas  had  brought  him  any  letters. 
Philipon  recognized  them  and  stopped. 

"Hallo,  you  two !    Good  evening,  madame." 

Then  he  tapped  Brent  on  the  chest  with  a  friendly 
forefinger. 

"Have  you  left  anybody  in  charge  over  there  1" 

"No." 

"I  should  get  back  home.    Do  you  hear  ?" 

They  listened,  and  heard  in  the  distance  the  sound  of 
men  singing  a  rowdy  song. 

Philipon  nodded. 

"A  little  zigzag  and  parading  the  village!  It  is  time 
we  did  something  with  that  buvette  of  Louis  Blanc's. 
Hold  on;  I'll  walk  back  with  you." 

He  poked  his  black  head  into  the  post-office. 

"Any  letters,  madame?" 

"No,  monsieur." 

"What  is  that  boy  of  mine  doing  in  Germany  ?" 

He  took  Paul's  arm  and  the  three  of  them  entered  the 
Rue  de  Picardie.  Philipon  was  an  affectionate  animal  in 
spite  of  his  frown  and  his  rumbling  voice,  and  Brent  had 
helped  him  in  the  rebuilding  of  his  house.  His  f  atherliness 
stretched  out  a  protective  arm  over  these  two.  It  is  the 
big  men  who  are  most  warm-hearted  and  sentimental,  and 
Philipon  was  always  saying  to  his  wife,  "Look  at  those 


308  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

two  at  the  cafe!  What  a  romance!  It  does  one's  heart 
good." 

They  walked  along  between  the  queer  shapes  and  little 
twinkling  lights  of  Beaucourt,  with  the  stars  shining  over- 
head, and  Philipon's  big  feet  falling  emphatically  on 
the  cobbles.  Here  and  there  men  and  women  were  sitting 
in  the  open  doorways.  They  exchanged  remarks  with 
Philipon,  whose  familiar  bulk  and  swing  of  the  legs  were 
known  to  all. 

"Bibi's  nightingales  are  singing." 

"It  is  time  we  did  something  with  that  drinking  shop." 

"I  hear  they  are  sending  us  two  gendarmes." 

"Gendarmes !  We  can  manage  our  own  affairs.  You 
wait.  We  are  ready  to  give  those  fellows  a  lesson." 

The  singing  grew  louder  as  they  neared  the  end  of  the 
Rue  de  Picardie,  and  it  appeared  that  Monsieur  Goblet's 
young  men  were  coming  down  the  Rue  Romaine.  Manon 
was  holding  to  Paul's  arm.  She  was  not  frightened,  but 
she  was  serious. 

"We  could  do  so  well  without  them,"  she  said. 

Philipon  grunted. 

"Don't  worry,  madame.  People  who  make  the  most 
noise  are  always  the  biggest  cowards." 

When  they  reached  the  end  of  the  garden  wall  Paul 
lifted  Manon  up  on  the  raised  path,  but  he  and  Philipon 
kept  to  the  road.  About  a  dozen  "roughs,"  with  arms 
linked  together,  had  swung  round  the  corner  out  of  the 
Rue  Romaine  and  were  dancing  the  can-can  in  the  road- 
way below  the  cafe.  They  were  rowdy  and  derisive, 
shouting  and  kicking  up  their  heels  in  front  of  the 
house. 

"Hallo— hallo!" 

"Profiteers!     Stuck-up  pigs!" 

"Let's  spoil  the  paint  for  them." 

"Shut  up.  They're  in  bed.  You  are  interfering  with 
the  embrace." 

"You  there,  is  she  nice  to  cuddle  ?" 

"When  is  the  baby  expected?" 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  309 

They  roared  with  laughter,  and  then  Philipon  loomed 
up  like  a  big  ship  in  the  starlight. 

"Allez!  Keep  your  snouts  out  of  our  village.  We 
hare  sticks  ready." 

The  choir  oscillated,  swayed,  and  seemed  inclined  to 
wind  itself  in  a  spiral  about  the  smith,  but  when  Philipon 
rapped  the  stone  wall  of  the  path  with  the  iron  bar  that 
he  had  been  carrying  these  rowdies  thought  it  wiser  to 
laugh. 

"Hallo,  there  goes  the  dinner-gong." 

"All  right,  sergeant-major." 

"And  there  is  madame,  too !" 

"Bon  soir,  madame ;  we  thought  you  were  in  bed.  We 
came  to  serenade  you !" 

The  human  chain  gave  a  wriggle  towards  the  Rue  de 
Picardie,  but  Philipon  put  himself  in  the  way. 

"You  can  go  back  by  the  other  road.  Beaucourt  is 
bored  with  you." 

They  chaffed  him,  but  they  took  his  advice.  Manon 
had  unlocked  the  door.  She  turned  and  thanked  Philipon. 

"Come  in  and  drink  a  glass  of  wine." 

"Pardon,  but  I  go  to  bed  early  in  order  to  get  up 
early.  I  think  those  lads  are  all  wind.  Good  night." 

"Good  night,  monsieur,  and  thank  you." 

"It's  nothing,"  said  the  smith. 

Manon  was  lighting  the  lamp  in  the  kitchen  when 
Brent  came  and  put  his  arm  round  her. 

"I  wish  we  could  blow  Bibi  and  that  crowd  off  the 
face  of  the  earth.  I  don't  like  the  idea  of  leaving  you 
here  with  those  fellows  about." 


XLI 

Iw  the  full  blaze  of  an  August  afternoon  Louis  Blanc 
made  Barbe  take  him  up  the  hill  to  the  Bois  du  Renard. 
They  had  locked  up  the  buvette,  and  the  red-haired  girl  led 
Bibi  by  the  hand  along  the  field-path  to  the  wood.  Her 
head  shone  like  a  piece  of  red  metal  close  to  the  blackness 
of  the  man's  coat;  she  had  to  watch  the  ground  so  that 
Bibi  should  not  stumble. 

"My  God,  but  it  is  hellish  to  be  blind!"  he  said;  "I 
cannot  even  see  you,  you  know." 

She  helped  him  over  an  old,  fallen  trench  at  the  edge 
of  the  wood,  and  in  crossing  it  he  slipped  and  fell  against 
her.  They  stood,  clinging  together  on  the  edge  of  the 
rotten  bank;  but  Barbe  had  a  body  like  steel,  and  she 
held  the  man  on  his  feet  with  his  head  resting  against  her 
bosom.  They  remained  thus  for  a  moment,  Bibi's  face 
flat  against  her  red  blouse  as  though  he  were  burying  his 
face  in  an  armful  of  flowers. 

"Ah,  but  you  smell  good." 

He  took  great  breaths  of  her,  holding  her  close,  and 
pressing  her  body  to  his  till  it  was  curved  like  a  bow. 

"Do  you  want  to  break  me,  you  great  rough  ?" 

She  was  delighted,  a  sensuous  cat,  her  eyes  half  closed, 
her  chin  resting  on  the  crown  of  Bibi's  head. 

"There  is  something  left  in  life  after  all.  Let  us  sit 
down  in  the  shade." 

"Anywhere  ?" 

"No.  I  want  to  be  where  I  could  see  all  Beaucourt 
like  a  meal  laid  out  on  a  table." 

She  chose  a  shady  place  for  him  at  the  foot  of  a  beech 
tree,  spreading  out  her  skirt  and  making  him  sit  on  it. 
From  the  Bois  du  Renard  it  was  possible  to  see  the  whole 
310 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  311 

of  Beaucourt  and  the  fields  and  woods  lying  about  it  in 
the  broad  August  sunshine.  Bibi  sat  with  his  knees  drawn 
up  and  his  elbows  resting  on  them.  Barbe  let  her  right 
arm  lie  across  his  shoulders. 

"There  it  is,"  she  said;  "I  can  even  see  little  Crapaud 
putting  new  tiles  on  the  factory  roof." 

Bibi  moistened  his  lips  with  the  tip  of  his  tongue. 

"Tell  me  all  about  it,  just  as  though  you  were  painting 
a  picture." 

She  humoured  him,  describing  Beaucourt  and  all  that 
she  could  seo  happening  in  Beaucourt,  using  that  brisk 
and  satirical  slang  of  hers,  the  language  of  the  comptoir. 

"There  is  the  church  with  half  its  spire  knocked  off, 
and,  I  suppose,  inside  of  it  old  Lefebre  is  splashing  white- 
wash about.  The  post-office  in  the  Place — just  like  a  flat 
grey  louse  crawling  up  to  have  a  bite  at  the  church  1 
Someone  is  walking  about  in  the  ruins  of  your  hotel." 

"Yes,  my  hotel !    Who  is  it  ?" 

"It's  too  far  off  for  me  to  see,  but  he  has  a  basket,  and 
seems  to  be  picking  up  bricks." 

"My  bricks !    Well,  it  doesn't  matter.    Go  on." 

"Half-way  down  the  Rue  de  Picardie  a  peasant  is 
lying  flat  on  the  roof  of  a  house.  He  has  a  white  patch  on 
the  seat  of  his  trousers,  as  though  the  cure  had  given  him 
a  smack  with  his  whitewash  brush.  Then  we  come  to 
the  cafe.  I  can  see  the  cafe  quite  plainly." 

"We  will  stay  there  a  moment.  What  is  happening 
at  the  cafe"?" 

"A  woman  is  hanging  out  linen  on  a  line  in  the  orchard." 

"That's  a  waste  of  time — when  we  are  going  to  dirty  it 
for  them." 

"Oh — yes — and  I  can  see  the  man.  He  is  standing  on  a 
ladder  doing  something  to  the  new  sign-board." 

"More  waste  of  time.  We  shall  drop  a  bomb  on  them 
next  Sunday." 

Bibi  remained  silent  for  a  while,  his  blind  face  like  a 
grotesque  gargoyle  spewing  hatred  over  the  house  of  his 
enemy.  Barbe  watched  him  out  of  the  corners  of  her  eyes, 


312  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

her  arm  resting  upon  his  shoulders.  She  knew  that  some 
plan  was  forming  in  his  mind,  and,  though  he  had  thrown 
out  nothing  but  hints  to  her,  she  was  ready  to  help  her 
man. 

"What  happens  on  Sunday  ?" 

He  turned  his  blind  eyes  to  her. 

"You  are  not  going  to  cut  my  hair — like  that  woman 
in  the  Bible." 

She  answered  sharply. 

"You  can't  get  on  without  me.    Isn't  that  so  ?" 

He  put  an  arm  round  her. 

"That's  the  truth.     You  know  how  to  mix  the  drinks." 

"So  that  is  to  be  my  job  ?" 

"I  want  all  of  them  mad  on  Sunday.  I  shall  want  old 
Cordonnier  well  fuddled  and  in  a  state  to  swear  anything. 
What's  the  best  stuff  for  it  ?" 

She  reflected,  leaning  her  chin  on  the  palm  of  her 
hand. 

"There  is  that  jar  of  cognac.  It  is  fiery  stuff.  I  could 
mix  it  with  the  wine.  What  are  you  going  to  do  ?" 

"I  keep  that  card  up  my  sleeve." 

"You  must  tell  me,"  she  said;  "I  shan't  give  you 
away." 

He  drew  her  head  close  to  his  face,  and  whispered  in 
her  ear. 

"The  man  is  a  Boche.    Now  do  you  see  light  ?" 

Neither  Manon  nor  Paul  had  any  suspicion  that  danger 
was  so  near  to  them,  nor  guessed  that  they  were  to  be 
made  the  victims  of  a  drunken  mob.  Quiet  people  do  not 
foresee  such  catastrophes,  nor  is  happiness  a  window  that 
opens  upon  tragedy.  The  very  house  they  had  rebuilt 
lulled  them  like  a  cradle.  It  was  so  very  precious,  so  much 
a  portion  of  their  human  selves  that  it  shared  that  immor- 
tality that  seems  part  of  us  when  we  love.  The  whole- 
someness  of  the  place  was  unassailable. 

Moreover,  Paul  Brent's  mood  of  pessimism  and  self- 
distrust  had  passed.  To  share  a  secret  with  a  friend  is  to 
halve  the  burden  of  it,  and  Lefebre  was  more  than  a  friend. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  313 

He  and  Durand  were  at  the  cafe  early  on  the  morning 
after  Paul  and  Manon's  visit  to  the  sacristy.  They  sat 
in  Manon's  kitchen,  with  the  doors  and  windows  closed, 
and  talked  the  affair  over  from  end  to  end. 

Durand  had  pretended  to  be  scandalized. 

"My  favourite  Frenchman  turning  out  English!  A 
nice  game  you  have  played  with  us !" 

"I  am  very  sorry,  monsieur." 

"Well,  well,  don't  look  so  miserable.  The  war  has 
turned  the  world  upside  down,  and  after  all — it  is  this 
that  counts." 

He  looked  round  Manon's  kitchen. 

"We  ought  to  judge  a  man  by  what  he  does.  A  simple 
rule  of  life  and  how  rarely  we  follow  it!  Now,  then 
— it  is  for  us  to  provide  this  Englishman  with  a  French 
character." 

He  smiled  at  Lefebre.  There  appeared  to  be  some 
secret  between  them,  some  dramatic  and  very  human 
denouement  that  they  guarded  like  a  couple  of  sentimental 
old  men. 

"It  should  not  be  difficult,"  said  the  priest 

Anatole  turned  to  Manon. 

"Monsieur  Lefebre  and  I  are  going  to  Amiens  on 
Saturday.  We  have  business  there — a  deputation,  a  meet- 
ing upon  the  devastated  regions.  I  can  interest  a  friend 
or  two  in  his  little  romance;  what  is  more,  we  will  ap- 
proach the  English  authorities.  If  we  give  this  rogue  herd 
a  passport  it  will  make  things  so  much  simpler." 

Manon  slipped  across  the  room  and  kissed  him. 

"I  do  not  think  they  can  be  very  hard  on  us." 

"My  dear,  I  had  better  take  you  with  me  to  see  some 
English  colonel  with  a  red  band  round  his  hat.  Feminine 
influence,  you  know!  If  you  put  your  arms  round  his 
neck !" 

"You  can  tease  me  as  much  as  you  like,  both  of  you, 
for  I  love  you  both." 

"Lefebre,"  said  the  manufacturer,  "this  house  is  be- 
coming dangerous." 


314  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

It  was  Anatole  Durand  who  advised  them  to  send  for 
Marie  Castener  from  Ste.  Claire,  and  to  arrange  for  her  to 
stay  with  them  in  Beaucourt  during  the  next  few  weeks. 
He  pointed  out  that  Brent  would  have  to  go  to  England, 
be  released  by  the  authorities,  and  return  with  the  neces- 
sary legal  proofs  of  his  identity.  Meanwhile  Marie  would 
be  the  very  woman  to  help  Manon  in  the  house.  She  was 
so  solid,  so  imperturbable,  such  a  good  friend,  quite  as 
capable  as  a  man  of  dealing  with  men. 

"If  any  of  Goblet's  fellows  stroll  round  here,  Marie 
would  only  have  to  stand  in  the  doorway." 

Durand  lent  her  his  car  and  drove  Manon  over  to  Ste. 
Claire.  Marie  was  willing  to  come  to  Beaucourt,  and  she 
accepted  Manon's  confession  with  her  usual  phlegmatic 
reasonableness. 

"A  good  man  is  the  same  everywhere.  You  can  trust 
me  to  keep  your  secret." 

"It  will  not  be  a  secret  long." 

"So  much  the  better.  For  myself  I  always  prefer  to 
tell  people  before  they  find  out.  But  that  man  of  yours 
is  clever ;  he  took  us  all  in." 

"Well,  I  helped  him,"  said  Manon. 

Marie  Castener  was  to  come  to  them  on  the  Saturday. 
Etienne  would  drive  her  over  in  the  gig,  for  Etienne 
wanted  to  see  how  things  were  going  at  Beaucourt.  There 
were  people  who  called  it  the  "miraculous  village,"  and 
she  smiled  shrewdly  at  Anatole  Durand. 

"Monsieur  is  a  wizard." 

Durand,  looking  happy,  shrugged  off  the  compliment. 

"Everybody  has  worked  hard.  We  are  so  proud  of 
Beaucourt  that  we  have  asked  a  very  great  man  to  come 
and  see  it.  But  I  am  giving  away  secrets.  I  am  very 
glad  that  you  are  coming  to  look  after  Manon,  madame." 

"I  have  always  found  Manon  very  well  able  to  look 
after  herself,  monsieur.  But  then — I  am — solid." 

A  man  whose  hands  are  well  occupied  is  not,  as  a  rule, 
a  man  of  moods,  and  yet  a  quite  inexplainable  sadness 
took  possession  of  Paul  Brent  on  that  Friday  evening  be- 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  315 

fore  the  coming  of  Marie  Castener.  It  was  the  last  evening 
that  he  and  Manon  were  to  spend  alone  before  the  uncer- 
tain days  that  would  follow  his  surrender  to  some  English 
Provost-marshal.  Paul  had  become  resigned  to  the  idea 
of  surrender;  it  was  his  penance  before  his  marriage, 
the  only  path  by  which  he  could  come  back  to  Manon 
with  no  lie  in  his  heart.  It  was  the  thought  of  leaving  her 
that  troubled  him,  and  gave  an  edge  of  pain  to  his  tender- 
ness. He  was  astonished  to  find  how  deeply  this  new 
life  of  his  had  rooted  itself  in  Beaucourt;  England  mat- 
tered to  him  hardly  at  all. 

"It  13  the  woman,"  he  said  to  himself;  "it  is  the 
woman  who  matters." 

As  they  sat  at  supper  Manon  became  aware  of  his 
silence.  She  noticed  that  his  eyes  wandered  about  the 
room,  this  room  that  had  seen  the  beginnings  of  the  ad- 
venture, tho  defeat  of  Bibi,  the  exultation  of  their  first 
embrace.  She  saw  Paul  look  at  the  pictures  on  the  walls, 
the  new  curtains,  the  bowl  of  asters  on  the  table  by  the 
window,  Philosophe  asleep  on  the  rug  by  the  stove.  This 
familiar  room  was  pleasantly  and  wholesomely  complete. 
It  was  home. 

"Yes,  without  you  it  would  never  have  happened," 
she  said. 

He  looked  at  her  across  the  table  with  the  tenderness 
of  a  grown  man  whose  love  is  far  deeper  than  the  romantic 
devotion  of  a  boy. 

"It  makes  me  miserable  to  think  of  leaving  it." 

She  stretched  out  a  hand  and  let  it  rest  on  his. 

"But  you  will  come  back  very  soon.  I  have  a  feeling 
that  they  will  not  do  anything  very  terrible  to  you,  and 
Marie  and  I  can  carry  on." 

Dusk  was  falling.  They  did  not  light  the  lamp,  but 
went  out  like  lovers  into  the  orchard  and  watched  the 
moon  coming  up  huge  and  solemn  in  a  cloudless  sky.  It 
was  one  of  those  perfect  summer  nights,  very  gentle  and 
still,  when  you  can  fancy  that  you  can  hear  the  dew  falling 
out  of  the  silent  sky.  Holding  hands  they  wandered  df>*na, 


816  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

to  the  stream  and  followed  its  flickering  movements  in 
the  moonlight,  walking  close  to  the  poplars  and  the  old 
pollarded  willows.  The  trees  were  silent  as  death.  There 
were  no  fences  here,  and  the  meadows  seemed  to  stretch 
into  the  illimitable  moonlight. 

"How  peaceful  it  is." 

She  slipped  into  the  hollow  of  his  arm,  her  head  on  his 
shoiilder. 

"It  is  so  good  to  be  able  to  trust  a  man.  Do  you  not 
know  what  that  means  to  me  ?" 

"I  know  that  nothing  matters  to  me — but  you." 

They  stood  close  to  the  trunk  of  a  white  poplar,  and 
kissed. 

"You  belong  here  now,  mon  cheri.  You  are  sure  that 
you  will  never  be  home-sick  for  England  ?" 

Brent  looked  at  the  moon. 

"It  is  like  this,"  he  said;  "a  man  learns  what  life 
can  give  him,  and  what  he  wants  life  to  give  him.  The 
things  that  matter — the  simple,  happy,  restful  things ! 
You  may  run  all  over  the  world  looking  for  something  you 
left  in  your  own  village.  When  you  are  young  you  are 
always  wanting  the  apples  on  the  other  side  of  the  wall. 
I'm  not  like  that — now — thank  God !" 

She  stretched  out  a  hand  and  touched  the  trunk  of 
the  great  poplar. 

"Trees  are  so  wise.  They  stay  in  the  same  place,  it 
is  true,  but  they  grow;  they  see  the  great  fields  and  the 
good,  wise  life  of  the  fields.  They  feel  the  wind,  and  see 
the  sky  and  the  moon  and  the  stars,  and  hear  the  water 
running  through  the  meadows.  Mon  mari,  I  think  we  are 
going  to  be  very  happy  here,  you  and  I." 


XLH 

SUNDAY  came  as  a  day  of  great  heat,  sultry  and  oppres- 
sive. There  was  thunder  in  the  air,  and  Beaucourt  did  not 
go  out  to  work  in  the  fields,  but  remained  at  home  sitting 
in  the  shade,  or  lazily  busy  in  its  gardens.  At  noon  there 
was  hardly  a  soul  to  be  seen  in  the  streets,  and  for  an 
hour  no  one  passed  down  the  Kue  de  Bonniere  save  old 
Prosper  Cordonnier,  loping  long-legged  and  guiltily  to 
Bibi's  buvette.  The  hut  among  the  apple  trees  above  the 
factory  was  the  one  live,  noisy  spot  in  Beaucourt.  The  hut 
itself  was  like  a  baker's  oven,  and  the  men  lay  about  on 
the  grass  under  the  orchard  trees  and  under  an  awning 
that  Bibi  had  put  up.  Barbe  was  kept  busy  serving  them 
with  drink,  for  it  was  a  thirsty  and  quarrelsome  day,  a 
day  when  men's  tempers  feel  the  great  heat. 

As  Anatole  Durand  said,  after  the  event  had  happened, 
"What  a  confession — that  so  much  trouble  should  be 
caused  by  a  bottle  of  cognac,  a  drunken  'sheep's  head' — 
and  a  few  lies!"  Yet  Bibi's  plan  was  so  simple  and  so 
dangerously  human  because  it  appealed  to  the  baser  pas- 
sions. Given  sufficient  cognac,  a  fuddled  and  persuadable 
fool  like  old  Cordonnier,  and  one  stark  audacious  lie,  and 
the  machine  would  move.  It  happened  that  there  was 
ample  cognac ;  Cordonnier  became  valiant  and  obstinate  in 
his  silliness;  and  Bibi's  lie  had  all  the  assurance  and 
the  completeness  of  the  truth.  The  Cafe  de  la  Victoire 
was  a  bonfire  to  which  these  rowdies  were  to  put  a  match. 

Bibi  handled  the  affair  very  cleverly.  He  sat  on  a 
stool,  under  the  awning,  and  twitted  Pompom  Crapaud 
and  Ledoux  with  the  repulse  that  they  had  suffered  at 
the  hands  of  Paul  and  Manon.  He  was  playful  and  sar- 


318          THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

donic,  and  as  potent  for  evil  as  the  cognac  with  which 
Barbe  had  drugged  the  wine. 

"Those  capitalist  swine,"  snarled  Ledoux,  with  eyes 
that  looked  inflamed. 

"Well,  you  funked  it,  old  man,"  said  Crapaud;  "the 
fellow  put  me  out  all  right,  and  you  stood  by  and  watched." 

Ledoux  was  lying  close  to  Bibi's  stool,  and  Louis  Blanc 
bent  over  him  with  ironical  playfulness. 

"Did  you  ever  bayonet  a  Boche,  Lazare  ?" 

"Plenty  of  them." 

"So  did  I.  I  was  rather  good  with  the  toasting-fork. 
But  I  never  ran  away  from  a  Boche." 

Ledoux  looked  at  him  fiercely. 

"Is  that  a  cut  at  me?" 

"Well,  you  let  a  Boche  throw  your  pal  into  the  street. 
Ask  old  Cordonnier  over  there." 

That  is  how  it  began.  Bibi  had  the  whole  crowd 
round  him,  and  old  Cordonnier  was  swearing  to  all  sorts 
of  things  with  nods  and  winks  that  were  meant  to  be  cun- 
ning. He  was  too  fuddled  to  realize  the  seriousness  of 
the  affair  or  to  understand  whither  these  men's  passions 
were  tending.  It  seemed  no  more  than  a  riotous  and 
irresponsible  jest  invented  to  make  the  day  merry. 

It  was  so  easy  to  inflame  these  roughs  whose  blood  and 
brains  had  been  heated  by  the  stuff  Barbe  had  given  them 
to  drink.  A  mob  never  reflects.  It  spills  itself  like  wine 
out  of  a  split  cask  and  makes  straight  for  the  gutter. 

Bibi  told  his  tale — the  tale  that  his  hatred  had  thought 
out  in  the  darkness  of  those  summer  days.  Cordonnier 
had  given  him  the  idea,  and  he  had  elaborated  with  an 
ingenuity  that  made  it  convincing.  He  asserted  that 
Manon  had  remained  in  Beaucourt  after  the  Germans  had 
occupied  it ;  that  she  had  had  an  affair  with  a  Boche, 
that  this  Boche  had  "deserted,"  and  taken  her  away 
with  him  through  the  lines. 

"You  see  how  it  worked,"  he  said.  "Women  are  queer 
fish,  and  this  woman  was  infatuated.  The  fellow  may 
have  found  out  where  she  had  buried  her  money.  Every- 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  319 

thing  was  upside  down  just  then ;  the  'front'  was  a  sieve, 
and  this  Boche  was  fed  up.  He  gets  Manon  through 
the  lines,  and  is  taken  prisoner.  After  the  armistice  he 
escapes,  and  where  does  he  make  for?  Beaucourt,  of 
course.  He  knows  that  he  will  find  the  money  and  the 
woman  there.  A  useful  fellow,  too,  who  can  use  his  hands 
and  speak  French  like  a  Frenchman !  And  there  they  are 
in  Beaucourt  with  the  best  house  in  the  place.  A  nice 
pair,  what !" 

There  was  a  confusion  of  angry  and  excited  voices. 

"A  Boche!" 

"But  I  say,  old  man,  it  doesn't  sound  possible !" 

Bibi  held  up  a  fist. 

"Listen.  Cordonnier  there  heard  the  man  talking 
German.  When  he  told  me  that,  I  thought  I  would  try 
it  myself,  and  one  night  I  got  Mademoiselle  Barbe  to  put 
me  under  their  window.  When  a  man  is  shut  up  in  a 
house  with  a  woman,  does  he  talk  German  just  for  the 
fun  of  it?" 

"You  heard  him  ?" 

"I  did.  And  I  can  tell  you  my  blood  felt  hot;  it 
made  me  think  of  those  nights  when  one  heard  the  swine 
talking  in  the  trenches." 

It  was  Lazare  Ledoux  who  jumped  up  and  called  for 
a  crusade.  He  was  the  torch-bearer,  the  inflamer  of  mobs. 

"Come  on!  We'll  cut  the  woman's  hair  off,  and  kick 
the  fellow  into  the  street.  Come  on !" 

At  the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire  the  peaceful  details  of  an 
idle  summer  day  were  proofs  of  how  little  this  storm-burst 
was  expected.  Manon  had  run  down  to  Mere  Vitry's  with 
a  few  lettuces  and  a  basket  of  beans,  and  had  stayed 
chatting  with  the  old  lady.  Marie  Castener  was  washing 
up  the  dishes.  Brent,  in  his  shirt-sleeves,  had  pulled  the 
arm-chair  to  the  open  window,  and  was  lighting  a  pipe 
before  sitting  down  to  read  a  day-old  copy  of  Le  Petit 
Journal.  Someone  was  splitting  firewood  in  a  barn  across 
the  way,  and  the  steady  chunk-chunk  of  the  hatchet  was 
almost  as  rhythmic  as  the  ticking  of  a  big  clock. 


320  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUBE 

Brent  had  begun  to  read  an  article  on  the  coal  problem 
in  France,  an  article  that  contained  some  very  bitter 
criticism  of  the  British  miner,  when  an  unusual  and  yet 
familiar  sound  drew  his  attention  from  the  paper.  Back 
in  his  brain  were  many  memories,  sense  impressions  left. 
by  the  war,  and  this  particular  sound  reminded  him  of  a 
company  of  infantry  marching  into  its  village  billets. 
There  was  the  unforgettable  pounding  of  heavy  boots  on 
the  pave,  and  yet  this  noise  was  different.  Troops  marched 
in  step.  This  footwork  belonged  to  the  indisciplined  and 
scrambling  rush  of  a  crowd. 

Paul  turned  in  his  chair  and,  leaning  sideways,  looked 
along  the  street.  He  remained  quite  motionless  for  some 
seconds,  staring  at  this  litle  mob  of  men  debouching  from 
the  Rue  Romaine.  The  two  leading  figures  gave  Brent 
the  first  hint  of  how  the  coming  of  this  crowd  might  be  a 
threat  to  the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire.  Lazare  Ledoux  had 
blind  Bibi  by  the  hand,  a  Bibi  whose  face  looked  white 
and  fatal  beside  the  inflamed  faces  of  the  other  men. 

Brent  stood  up.  His  jaw  and  mouth  seemed  to  set 
into  hard,  bleak  lines  as  he  saw  the  wild  eyes  of  these  men 
turned  towards  the  house.  Lazare  Ledoux  caught  sight 
of  him  standing  at  the  open  window,  and  Ledoux's  mouth 
became  a  red-edged  splodge  of  howling  blackness. 

"VoilaleBoche!" 

The  crowd  howled  in  chorus,  and  Brent  felt  the  cold 
hand  of  fear  run  its  fingers  down  his  spine.  He  had  heard 
that  human  and  bestial  sound  before  when  a  company  of 
drunken  Bavarians  had  rushed  over  to  raid  a  front-line 
trench.  The  courage  in  him  had  felt  brittle  as  glass,  and 
yet  as  hard.  But  now  he  was  conscious  of  a  swift  and 
desperate  coolness,  an  instant's  lucidity  of  thought  between 
spasms  of  pain. 

He  went  quickly  to  the  door,  opened  it,  and  stood 
facing  the  crowd,  and  from  the  moment  that  he  looked  into 
the  wild  faces  of  these  men  who  hung  at  Bibi's  flanks  Brent 
knew  that  the  mob-horror  was  upon  him.  There  was  no 
reason  in  those  eyes — nothing  in  these  furious  men  to 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  321 

which  he  could  appeal.  He  had  a  glimpse  of  Bibi's  teeth 
flashing  white  in  his  black  beard,  and  then  he  shut  the  door 
on  them  and  shot  the  bolts. 

"Fetch  him  out !" 

"We  want  the  woman." 

Marie  was  standing  in  the  passage,  her  face  like  a 
great  round  wondering  moon. 

"Quick!  Get  out  by  the  back  door,  and  through  the 
garden.  Stop  Manon ;  she  mustn't  come  here." 

Marie  stared  at  him,  and  Paul  went  to  her  and  pushed 
her  bodily  towards  the  back  door. 

"They  think  I'm  a  Boche.  For  God's  sake  go  and 
stop  her.  I'll  keep  them  interested  here." 

She  went  blundering  across  the  yard,  and  out  by  the 
gate  leading  into  the  orchard.  Crapaud  and  half  a  dozen 
other  men  just  missed  the  flick  of  her  petticoat  round  the 
angle  of  the  wall  as  they  ran  into  the  yard  to  guard  the 
back  door.  Brent  had  closed  and  bolted  it,  and  Marie 
got  away. 

Ledoux  and  several  others  had  swarmed  in  through 
the  kitchen  window.  They  came  into  the  passage  as  Paul 
sprang  for  the  stairs.  He  had  no  weapon,  but  he  turned 
on  them  there  with  the  ferocity  of  an  animal  driven  into 
a  corner. 

"What  do  you  want,  you  devils  ?  I'm  an  Englishman. 
Keep  clear." 

"You  are  a  Boche,"  shouted  Ledoux;  "no  more  tricks. 
Drag  him  down,  lads,  out  with  him  into  the  street." 


XLIII 

As  Marie  Castener  turned  into  the  Rue  Romaine  she 
heard  Bibi  shouting  like  a  madman. 

"Put  me  at  the  door,  put  me  at  the  door." 

They  humoured  him,  and  he  began  to  lash  at  it  with  his 
big  feet  till  the  flimsy  thing  broke  away  from  its  fastenings 
and  showed  the  struggling  group  upon  the  stairs.  Ledoux 
was  leaning  against  the  wall  holding  his  head  in  his  hands ; 
three  other  men  were  dragging  Brent  down  the  stairs. 

Marie  Castener  panted  down  the  Rue  Romaine,  waving 
her  hands  in  the  air. 

"Mon  Dieu — ces  hommes !" 

For  once  in  her  life  her  phlegm  deserted  her,  and  her 
emotion  overflowed  her  bulk.  She  was  to  stop  Manon — 
prevent  her  returning  to  the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire — :but 
beyond  that  her  ideas  were  hazy  and  uncertain. 

Fifty  yards  down  the  Rue  Romaine  she  met  Manon 
coming  towards  her,  a  Manon  who  had  seen  Bibi's  mob 
rush  past  Mere  Vitry's  window.  With  the  rush  of  those 
fatal  figures  an  equal  fear  had  leapt  into  her  heart.  She 
had  hurried  out,  and  here  was  Marie,  stertorous  and  quak- 
ing, and  trying  to  look  calm.  From  that  moment  Manon 
knew  what  was  happening  at  the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire,  and 
that  it  was  her  love  against  the  mob. 

"They  are  there  ?" 

Marie  spread  out  her  arms. 

"Don't  go.    Paul  told  me  to  stop  you." 

"He  told  you  that!" 

She  slipped  past  big  Marie  as  easily  as  a  dog  dodges  a 

bull,  and  began  to  run  towards  the  corner  where  the  three 

roads  met.     Marie  Castener  turned  and  lumbered  after 

her,  and  now  that  the  secret  was  out  she  began  to  use  that 

yu 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  323 

deep,  low  voice  of  hers.  Doors  were  opening,  and  people 
pushing  their  heads  out  into  the  street.  Marie  shouted 
to  them,  waving  an  arm  like  an  Amazon  heading  a  charge. 

"Come  on,  all  of  you — come  on.  Help  me  to  save 
Manon." 

When  Manon  came  to  the  meeting  of  the  roads  she 
saw  a  sight  that  she  was  never  likely  to  forget.  A  thing 
that  looked  like  a  bundle  of  torn  clothes  was  lying  in  the 
middle  of  the  street,  and  Bibi  was  kicking  at  it  with  his 
heavy  boots.  There  was  something  grotesquely  disgusting 
in  this  great  blind  beast  feeling  for  Paul  Brent's  body  with 
his  feet,  trampling  and  hacking  like  a  blind  stallion.  The 
crowd  stood  round  with  an  animal  stupidity  that  is  fas- 
cinated by  violent  physical  action. 

Manon's  face  lit  up  with  a  white  and  inward  blaze. 
She  picked  up  a  loose  cobble-stone  and  ran  forward;  a 
little  figure  of  silence,  purposeful  and  intense.  No  one  in 
the  crowd  noticed  her  until  she  had  opened  the  circle, 
that  little  arena  held  by  certain  elemental  passions,  and 
had  flung  her  stone  full  in  Bibi's  face.  It  took  him  be- 
tween the  eyes  and  laid  him  on  the  cobbles. 

That  physical  act  of  hers  dominated  the  crowd.  She 
stood  over  Paul's  body  and  looked  round  at  these  men, 
these  creatures  of  a  brutal  impulse  whom  strong  drink 
and  their  passions  had  inflamed.  It  was  a  moment  of 
physical  balance,  of  hesitation,  of  poignant  self-conscious- 
ness, when  some  little  act  or  word  turns  men  back  from 
the  smell  of  the  shambles. 

"Why  did  you  do  it?" 

She  spoke  in  a  quiet  and  accusing  voice,  like  a  grown 
child  who  is  unable  to  understand  the  ways  of  rough  men. 

"He  had  done  nothing  to  you.     He  was  a  good  man." 

They  stood  grouped  around  her,  furtively  awkward, 
suddenly  self-conscious,  and  therefore  very  near  to  shame. 
She  had  turned  and  was  bending  over  Paul  Brent,  when 
Lazare  Ledoux,  rocking  on  his  heels,  shot  out  a  malignant} 
and  accusing  hand. 

"The  fellow  is  a  Boche." 


324  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

She  straightened  up  and  faced  Ledoux. 

"It  is  a  lie." 

He  grimaced  at  her. 

"I  say  he  is  a  Boche.  And  you — a  Frenchwoman — 
have  given  yourself  to  a  Boche." 

Manon  did  not  move.  Her  eyes  looked  straight  at 
Ledoux. 

"It  is  a  lie.  This  man  is  English,  and  I  will  prove  it. 
But  what  have  I  to  do  with  any  of  you  ?  Oh,  Marie,  help 
me!" 

Marie  Castener  appeared,  pushing  the  men  aside  as 
though  they  were  bits  of  furniture.  There  were  other 
women  with  her,  a  dozen  of  them,  and  a  few  men.  Manon 
was  down  on  her  knees  with  Paul's  head  in  her  lap,  bend- 
ing over  his  grey,  dirt-smeared  face.  He  was  bleeding 
from  the  mouth,  and  from  a  bruised  wound  on  the  fore- 
head. 

"He  breathes!" 

Marie  was  down  beside  her  when  Ledoux  tried  to  inter- 
fere. She  turned,  and  swinging  a  huge  arm,  caught  him 
across  the  face  with  the  back  of  her  hand. 

"Get  out." 

Two  other  women  pushed  him  back,  and  the  crowd 
laughed.  Ledoux,  looking  evil,  went  round  to  where  Bibi 
was  sitting  up,  still  dazed  but  potentially  dangerous. 
Ledoux  helped  him  to  his  feet. 

"It  was  the  woman  who  hit  you  with  a  stone.   Come  on." 

Ledoux  was  too  late,  for  Beaucourt  intervened.  It 
came  in  force  down  the  Rue  de  Picardie,  led  by  Philipon, 
•who  carried  a  blacksmith's  hammer.  Someone  sprang  on 
the  side-walk  and  collared  Pompom  Crapaud,  who  was 
caught  at  the  cafe  doorway  with  a  tin  of  petroleum  and 
a  bunch  of  straw.  The  two  crowds  jostled  each  other, 
waiting  for  some  inflammatory  word  or  act  that  should  set 
them  alight,  but  that  faction  fight  never  developed. 
Philipon's  hammer  may  have  had  something  to  do  with  it ; 
also,  these  peasants  were  quiet  fellows;  they  had  the 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  325 

strong  bodies  and  the  obstinate  blue  eyes  of  the  men  of 
the  open  country.  Almost  inperceptibly  they  pushed 
Goblet's  factory  roughs  back  towards  the  Rue  Romaine, 
took  possession  of  the  central  scene,  and  held  it. 

Manon  was  kneeling,  body  erect,  watching  Bibi  and 
Ledoux,  who  had  been  cut  off  from  their  friends.  Her 
eyes  met  Philipon's.  She  pointed. 

"Those  two." 

Ledoux  had  been  trying  to  make  away,  but  Bibi  held 
him  by  the  arm. 

"Hold  on,  what's  happening  ?    Is  the  house  alight  ?" 

Ledoux  was  frightened. 

"Look  out !  The  whole  village  is  here,  and  the  women 
are  spiteful." 

"He's  dead,  that  chap,  isn't  he  ?  Whose  hand  is  that  ? 
Hallo!" 

"Mine!"  said  Philipon.  "You  stand  where  you  are, 
Louis  Blanc.  And  you,  too,  you  dog  with  the  red  eyes. 
Here,  look  after  these  two  beauties,  some  of  you." 

And  suddenly,  yet  with  deliberation,  he  took  Bibi  by 
the  beard  and  held  him  as  a  man  might  hold  a  goat. 

"Yes,  you,  Louis  Blanc,  it  is  not  for  me  to  spit  in  the 
face  of  a  blind  man.  Stand  still,  will  you?  If  there  is 
law  in  Beaucourt  to-day  it  is  the  law  of  my  hammer." 

Louis  Blanc  stood  still.  He  had  always  been  afraid  of 
Philipon,  the  one  man  in  Beaucourt  who  was  stronger 
than  himself. 

Meanwhile,  the  unconscious  figure  of  Paul  Brent  and 
the  two  kneeling  women  bending  over  it  held  the  crowd 
silent  and  attentive.  Here  was  a  little  human  scene  that 
had  all  the  helplessness  and  the  inevitableness  of  tragedy, 
a  man  lying  dead  in  a  village  street,  and  a  woman  holding 
his  poor  head  in  her  lap.  That  is  how  the  crowd  saw  it. 
They  looked  at  Manon  with  a  shrinking  curiosity,  a  sym- 
pathy that  was  kindly  inarticulate.  With  her  hands  she 
was  wiping  away  the  dust  from  Paul's  hair,  her  eyes  quite 
tearless,  eyes  that  seemed  to  look  at  a  sudden  emptiness, 


326  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

a  vacancy  in  life.  Paul  was  not  dead,  but  she  believed 
that  he  was  dying. 

Philipon  joined  them,  sombre  and  gentle. 

"How  is  it  with  him  ?    How  did  it  happen  ?" 

Manon  raised  her  eyes  to  his. 

"They  have  kicked  him  to  death.  It  was  Bibi's 
doing." 

She  bent  over  Paul. 

"He  still  breathes.  If  only  we  had  a  doctor!  Marie, 
what  shall  we  do  ?" 

Marie  Castener  had  been  passing  her  big,  slow,  capable 
hands  over  Brent's  body.  She  had  felt  his  heart  beating 
tinder  his  torn  shirt.  Marie  kept  her  head. 

"He  is  not  dead — a  doctor — that's  it!  They  always 
say,  'Never  pull  an  unconscious  man  about.'  Josephine, 
and  you,  Claire — run  into  the  house  for  some  blankets; 
pull  them  off  the  bed.  Has  anyone  a  bicycle  ?" 

"If  Anatole  were  here,  he  would  drive  to  Amiens  for 
a  doctor.  He  is  at  Amiens,  if  he  could  be  met  and  told." 

She  raised  her  head  to  listen.  Philipon,  too,  was 
listening  with  an  attentive  look  on  his  face,  and  in  that 
most  dramatic  moment  in  the  history  of  Beaucourt  the 
whole  crowd  seemed  to  turn  instinctively  to  the  opening 
of  the  Rue  Romaine.  They  heard  the  musical  bleating  of 
a  horn.  Someone  on  the  outskirts  of  the  crowd  held  up  a 
warning  arm  as  the  nose  of  a  long  grey  car  slid  slowly  out 
of  the  Rue  Romaine.  Old  Durand's  De  Dion  was  follow- 
ing at  the  tail  of  the  grey  car.  The  crowd  edged  back. 
They  saw  Monsieur  Lefebre  standing  up  in  Durand's  car, 
his  hand  on  Anatole's  shoulder,  his  jocund  face  very  stern 
and  troubled.  The  grey  car  pushed  on  until  it  reached 
the  space  about  those  central  figures ;  it  stopped  there  like 
some  intelligent  beast  wholly  sensible  of  its  own  dramatic 
significance.  There  were  four  men  in  the  grey  car, 
and  one  of  them  had  the  white  head  and  the  indomitable 
and  unforgettable  face  of  the  man  who  had  refused  to  see 
France  defeated.  It  was  the  "Tiger,"  the  Father  of 
Victory,  Georges  Clemenceau. 


XLIV 

ANATOLE  DUKAND  jumped  out  of  the  car  and  ran  to- 
wards the  group  in  the  middle  of  the  street.  His  bright 
eyes  saw  everything,  Bibi  and  Ledoux  held  by  four  men, 
the  figure  lying  on  the  cobbles,  and  the  women  bending 
over  it,  but  the  most  vivid  and  arrestive  thing  of  all  waa 
the  white  face  of  Manon. 

"Monsieur  Anatole,  a  doctor?" 

Durand  gave  a  dramatic  jerk  of  the  hands. 

"We  have  one  here  in  the  car — Monsieur  Lafond  l'T 

A  man  with  a  black  beard  was  already  leaving  the* 
grey  car.  He  was  short,  compact,  square,  with  alert 
brown  eyes  shining  behind  pince-nez,  a  figure  of  good- 
humour,  and  of  energy,  direct  yet  easy  in  all  its  move- 
ments. He  came  forward  pulling  off  his  gloves.  One  of 
the  women  threw  a  folded  blanket  on  the  ground  beside 
Paul  Brent,  and  the  doctor  knelt  upon  the  blanket. 

Durand  and  Lefebre  were  talking  to  Philipon  and  Marie 
Castener,  and  Du rand's  anger  was  explosive.  He  looked 
across  at  Bibi  and  Ledoux,  his  nostrils  inflated,  his  bright 
eyes  agleam. 

"Those  dogs!     Presently — presently!" 

He  faced  about,  and,  walking  to  the  grey  car  with  an 
air  of  sturdy  courage,  stood  close  beside  the  Father  of 
Victory.  And  these  two  old  Frenchmen  looked  each  other 
in  the  eyes. 

"This  village  of  yours,  Monsieur  Durand,  seems  a 
little  quarrelsome." 

"I  am  not  humiliated,  monsieur,  but  my  heart  is  sore. 
You  will  tell  me  that  life  is  ironical  ?" 

Clemenceau  laid  a  hand  on  Durand's  shoulder. 
327 


328  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE 

"My  friend,  I  have  always  set  my  teeth.  What  hurts 
you  hurts  me.  What  has  happened  ?" 

In  a  few  jerky  sentences  Durand  gave  Georges  Clemen- 
ceau  the  pith  and  soul  of  this  village  romance. 

"The  man  who  raised  the  flag  here,  and  was  the  first 
to  attack  the  ruins,  but  then,  he  had  the  soul  of  a  peasant, 
of  a  worker,  a  creator;  the  city  eats  and  destroys;  the 
countryman  grows  and  harvests.  Once  again  it  is  the 
peasant  spirit  that  will  save  France." 

He  leant  his  arms  on  the  door  of  the  car. 

"Yet  is  it  not  strange,  monsieur,  that  I — a  foolish  old 
man — should  have  chosen  this  very  day  to  show  you  the 
pride  of  my  heart  ?  Perhaps  we  had  grown  a  little  vain 
here,  and  Providence  sent  a  few  drunken  blackguards  to 
chasten  us." 

Clemenceau  was  frowning,  and  his  bushy  white  eye- 
trows  bristled. 

"No.  The  work  stands.  The  quiet  men  will  always 
thrash  the  talkers.  Is  that  the  house — there  ?" 

He  looked  intently  at  the  Cafe  de  la  Victoire. 

"Yes — one  man's  work." 

Georges  Clemenceau  smiled. 

"He  was  very  much  in  love.  God  forbid  that  this 
should  end  unhappily." 

A  little  human  murmur  rose  from  the  crowd,  a  pleasant 
sound  such  as  animals  make  when  their  young  run  to  them 
for  milk.  The  doctor  was  smiling  behind  his  glasses,  for 
Brent  had  opened  his  eyes.  He  raised  a  hand  and  touched 
Manon,  a  Manon  whose  face  had  suddenly  lost  the  calm 
of  tragedy  and  was  like  broken  light,  quivering,  tenderly 
shaken.  She  began  to  weep — tears  of  quiet  emotion. 

"Oh,  mon  cherie !" 

Paul  looked  up  at  her  and  nothing  else. 

"They  have  not  hurt  you  ?" 

"No,  no." 

The  doctor  patted  her  shoulder  and  continued  to  watch 
Brent. 

"I  do  not  think  he  is  going  to  die,  madame." 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  329 

"No,  monsieur." 

"He  has  a  rib  or  two  broken.  We  will  get  him  into 
the  house,  and  I  can  dress  that  wound  on  his  head.  It  is 
probable  that  Monsieur  Clemenceau  will  let  us  send  the 
car  back  to  Amiens  for  the  necessary  drugs  and  dressings. 
Is  there  a  bed  ready  ?" 

"Yes,  monsieur." 

The  doctor  got  up,  and  seeing  Philipon,  instinctively 
chose  him  for  the  work  that  was  to  be  done. 

"It  is  essential  that  he  should  be  moved  very  care- 
fully. I  shall  want  a  door,  something  flat,  and  four 
helpers.  One  has  to  be  cautious  when  a  man  has  been 
kicked  about  the  body." 

Anatole  Durand  rejoined  them  with  a  face  that  beamed. 

"There  is  nothing  very  serious  ?  No  ?  Monsieur  le 
docteur,  I  am  overjoyed.  Well,  Paul,  my  boy,  we  are 
going  to  mend  you  in  five  minutes." 

He  was  down  on  his  knees  beside  Manon. 

"My  dear,  it  is  your  happiness  that  weeps." 

She  raised  her  face  to  his. 

"Monsieur  Anatole,  almost  I  am  afraid  yet  to  be  happy, 
but  I  am  not  afraid  of  all  that  must  follow." 

"The  aftermath?' 

"Yes,  I  must  speak.  Is  it  true  that  Monsieur  Clemen- 
ceau is  in  that  car  ?" 

"Quite  true." 

"It  is  an  act  of  God.  Will  you  ask  Monsieur  Lefebre 
to  speak  to  the  crowd  and  tell  them  to  stay  here  ?  I  shall 
leave  Paul  and  Marie  and  the  doctor  when  we  have  put 
him  to  bed.  First  of  all  I  wish  to  speak  to  Monsieur 
Clemenceau." 

"He  will  listen  to  you,  my  dear.  We  told  him  your 
tale  to-day,  and  he  understands." 

Philipon  had  found  a  length  of  "duck-board"  in  one 
of  the  yards;  blankets  and  coats  were  spread  on  it,  and 
Brent  lifted  gently  on  to  this  improvised  stretcher.  Phili- 
pon and  three  other  men  carried  him  into  the  house,  past 
the  smashed  green  door  that  showed  scars  left  by  Bibi's 


330  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE 

boots,  and  into  the  little  room  whose  window  overlooked 
the  garden.  He  was  put  to  bed  there,  Monsieur  Lafond 
helping  Manon  and  Philipon,  while  Marie  stood  in  the 
doorway  and  watched. 

Paul  was  aware  of  a  voice  speaking  to  the  crowd — 
the  deep  and  pleasant  voice  of  Monsieur  Lefebre.  The 
cure  was  standing  on  the  raised  path  in  front  of  the  cafe, 
and  his  massive  and  impressive  head  looked  the  colour 
of  bronze. 

"My  friends,  Madame  Latour  asks  you  to  remain  here. 
She  has  something  to  say  to  us  all,  and  I — who  know  the 
truth — ask  you  to  stay  and  listen." 

The  crowd  acquiesced.  It  had  no  thought  of  dispersing 
when  the  stage  was  still  set,  and  Monsieur  Clemenceau 
himself  descending  upon  Beaucourt  like  a  god  in  a  car. 
They  had  cheered  him,  and  someone  had  begun  to  sing 
the  "Marseillaise,"  all  the  men  standing  bare-headed  in  the 
August  sunshine.  Then  the  crowd  resigned  itself  to  inter- 
lude, grouping  itself  in  doorways,  and  along  the  raised 
path,  and  even  sitting  on  the  cobbles.  Most  of  Goblet's 
men  had  slipped  away,  but  a  few  loafed  defiantly  at  the 
corner  of  the  Rue  Komaine.  And  from  that  moment  it  was 
Anatole  Durand  who  acted  as  the  master  of  the  ceremonies, 
going  briskly  to  and  fro  between  the  Tiger's  car  and  the 
cafe.  At  last  he  appeared  with  Manon  on  his  arm.  The 
crowd  stirred  with  a  sound  like  the  rustling  of  leaves  when 
a  wind  ruffles  the  hanging  boughes  of  a  wood. 

They  saw  Manon  and  Durand  descend  the  steps  at  the 
end  of  the  raised  path,  and  walk  towards  the  grey  car. 
Manon  stood  close  to  the  running-board  of  the  car,  a 
sturdy  little  woman  with  a  dignity  of  her  own,  her  tears 
gone,  her  eyes  steady  and  determined.  Durand  intro- 
duced her. 

"This  is  Madame  Latour." 

Georges  Clemenceau  removed  his  hat. 

"Madame,  Monsieur  Durand  made  you  known  to  me 
in  Amiens.  I  have  been  admiring  your  house  of  adven- 
ture. What  can  I  do  for  you?" 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  331 

They  understood  each  other  at  once,  these  two. 

"Monsieur.  I  wish  you  to  judge  us  like  a  father,  myself, 
my  betrothed,  and  those  two  men  there.  I  shall  speak, 
and  they  can  answer  me.  I  wish  this  to  be  done  before  all 
the  village,  before  all  those  who  honour  us.  I  shall  tell 
the  truth — the  whole  truth." 

Clemenceau's  eyes  glimmered  under  their  white  eye- 
brows. He  considered  Manon,  and  the  heart  and  the 
head  of  him  found  her  good. 

"Work  heals  all  wounds,"  he  said,  and  then,  with  a 
smile  at  this  little  Frenchwoman,  "I  am  to  give  you 
patriarchal  justice?  What  could  be  better!  And  the 
doctor  needs  my  car." 

He  turned  to  Durand. 

"Let  us  have  some  chairs  placed  on  that  path  in  front 
of  the  house.  Now,  madame." 

He  left  the  car,  followed  by  his  two  officials,  and 
mounted  the  raised  path,  keeping  Manon  beside  him. 

"To  begin  with,"  he  said,  "I  must  look  at  this  house 
of  yours  while  Monsieur  Durand  is  arranging  the  stage 
for  us.  It  interests  me  vastly,  this  house." 

He  entered  the  cafe,  pausing  to  look  at  the  broken 
door.  "A  Prussian  trick,  that!"  His  round,  white  head 
seemed  to  sink  more  grimly  between  his  shoulders.  Manon 
had  to  show  him  the  whole  house  from  cellar  to  roof,  and 
to  give  him  an  account  of  how  they  had  lived  through 
that  adventurous  spring.  His  eyes  twinkled,  he  noticed 
everything;  his  interest  in  all  the  human  details  of  the 
house  was  simple  and  intense.  Stubbornness  and  courage 
appealed  to  him,  and  there  was  courage  in  every  corner 
of  this  little  provincial  home.  He  saw  in  it  life,  inevitable 
yet  miraculous,  pushing  its  way  through  the  ruins.  It 
was  a  poem  in  timber  and  iron,  an  emotion,  a  part  of  the 
heart  of  France. 

At  the  foot  of  the  stairs  he  turned  and  looked  up  at 
Manon. 

"He  has  done  well — this  man  of  yours.    I  will  see  him 


332  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE 

Then  he  went  out  into  the  sunlight  and  faced  the 
crowd.  Five  chairs  had  been  set  in  a  row  along  the  raised 
path,  and  Georges  Clemenceau  took  the  centre  chair.  On 
his  right  sat  Lef ebre ;  on  his  left  Anatole  Durand.  Manon 
had  the  chair  next  to  Durand,  Philipon  the  one  on  the 
extreme  right.  Clemenceau  nodded  to  Durand.  Bibi  and 
Ledoux  were  pushed  forward  into  the  open  space  below 
the  path,  and  the  crowd  closed  round  them.  There  was 
silence. 


XLV 

EVEEY  man  and  woman  in  the  crowd  watched  Georges 
Clemenceau,  for  his  presence  dominated  them  all.  Even 
the  naturalness  with  which  he  sat  in  his  chair  and  looked 
at  them  from  under  his  bushy  eyebrows  seemed  part  of 
his  greatness,  part  of  his  magnificent  yet  subtle  simplicity. 
They  saw  in  him  the  man  who  had  held  up  the  sword-arm 
of  France,  a  man  who  could  be  stubborn  with  the  stubborn- 
ness of  a  peasant.  That  round  head  of  his  and  that  almost 
feline  face  had  a  shrewd  and  humorous  benignity.  The 
Tiger  could  smile,  he  could  hate,  and  he  could  love. 

He  began  to  speak  to  them,  leaning  back  in  his  chair,- 
his  hands  resting  on  his  thighs. 

"Let  me  tell  you  that  in  the  country  men  do  not  make 
speeches;  they  put  their  hands  to  the  plough  and  hoe; 
that  is  the  eloquence  we  understand.  To-day  I  came  to 
this  village  of  yours  to  see  if  Monsieur  Durand  had  been 
telling  me  fairy  tales,  and  I  find  a  little  family  quarrel 
going  on,  and  someone  has  asked  me  to  sit  here  as  the  head 
of  the  family  to  decide  who  is  right  and  who  is  wrong. 
At  my  age — and  in  these  days — the  things  that  are  right 
and  good  for  our  country  seem  so  plain  and  so  simple  that 
it  is  easy  for  us  to  judge  whether  a  man  is  a  good  citizen 
or  not.  The  ruins  and  the  very  stumps  of  the  dead  trees 
call  to  us  for  help.  He  who  builds,  he  who  plants,  he  who 
gives  his  sweat  to  France,  that  man  is  the  man  whom  we 
honour." 

He  paused,  smiling  round  at  the  listening  and  attentive 
faces.  He  was  speaking  like  a  peasant  to  peasants,  and 
he  had  his  hand  on  their  hearts. 

"Let  me  tell  you  that  I  have  visited  many  villages. 
What  happens?  The  people  crowd  round  me;  they  say: 

333 


334  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

'Monsieur,  when  will  the  Government  help  us  ?  We  have 
no  material.  What  are  we  to  do  ?  It  is  sad,  it  is  tragic/ 
And  I  say  to  them,  'Work,  children,  work.  Do  not  wait 
for  the  bureaucrats  and  for  indemnities.  The  world  is  a 
selfish  world,  and  officials  do  not  hurry,  but  I  will  hurry 
them  with  all  the  strength  that  is  left  to  me.  Our  suffer- 
ings are  not  yet  over,  but  let  us  suffer  a  little  longer  for 
France.  Work;  look  about  you,  do  not  sit  still  and  wait. 
Clear  the  ground — gather  together  what  you  can ;  we  will 
see  to  it  that  you  have  food  and  fuel.  During  the  war  we 
gave  blood;  now — we  must  give  our  sweat.  And  they 
are  good  people;  they  see  that  I  cannot  promise  miracles 
and  they  forgive  me." 

Paul  Brent  was  lying  in  the  little  room  listening  to 
Monsieur  Clemenceau's  voice.  His  face  was  turned  to  the 
window  that  opened  on  the  garden,  and  he  could  see  the 
line  of  the  stone  wall  and  the  branches  of  the  lime  trees 
making  a  broken  pattern  against  the  blue  of  the  sky. 
Beaucourt  seemed  very  silent,  extraordinarily  silent,  and 
yet  Brent  knew  that  nothing  but  a  brick  wall  separated 
him  from  all  those  people.  The  street  below  the  Cafe  de 
la  Yictoire  was  as  quiet  as  a  court  of  justice,  and  the  voice 
of  Clemenceau  was  the  voice  of  a  judge. 

Marie  Castener  sat  on  the  chair  beside  the  bed,  a  big, 
blond,  patient  woman,  who  listened  intently  to  all  that 
the  great  man  said.  Now  and  again  she  nodded  her  head 
and  made  some  comment.  "Yes,  that's  sound  sense." 
"This  man  gets  to  the  heart  of  things."  "We  make  our 
own  miracles."  "Listen,  Manon  is  speaking." 

They  heard  Manon's  voice  coming  out  of  that  same 
silence,  the  profound  silence  of  men  and  women  whose 
sympathies  are  challenged  by  some  drama  of  life  that 
stirs  their  emotions,  their  loves,  and  their  hates.  They 
had  listened  to  Clemenceau  with  stolidity  and  interest, 
but  when  Manon  Latour  began  to  speak  to  them  their 
eyes  lit  up  with  living  passion.  Into  the  open  space  where 
Bibi  and  Ledoux  were  standing  someone  had  pushed  Pom- 
Crapaud,  and  at  the  sight  of  this  sinister  little  devil 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  335 

still  carrying  his  tin  of  petroleum,  the  crowd  uttered  its 
first  cry  of  anger.  These  peasants  looked  meaningly  at 
each  other.  Mouths  and  eyes  hardened.  A  house  had 
become  a  sacred  object  in  Beaucourt,  and  Crapaud  had 
been  caught  in  an  act  of  sacrilege. 

Manon  was  standing  beside  her  chair.  The  sight  of 
Crapaud  angered  her  as  it  angered  the  crowd. 

"What  had  we  done  to  you  that  you  should  wish  to 
burn  our  home?" 

Crapaud  giggled.  He  found  himself  between  Bibi  and 
Ledoux  and  facing  Clemenceau,  that  grim  old  badger  with 
the  white  moustache.  Fear  made  him  impudent  and 
vicious.  He  leered  up  at  the  blind  and  sullen  face  of 
Louis  Blanc,  and  at  the  uncertain  and  flickering  eyes  of 
Lazare  Ledoux. 

"You  look  cheerful — you  two!" 

He  nudged  Bibi  with  his  elbow  and  was  shrugged  aside 
by  an  angry  jerk  of  Blanc's  big  body.  Bibi  was  sulky  and 
furious;  these  "roughs"  were  of  no  more  use  to  him. 

"Get  out!" 

Crapaud  was  jostled  against  Ledoux,  who  looked  like 
a  great  melancholy  bird  disturbed  on  its  perch.  Ledoux 
was  afraid.  His  red  eyes  could  find  nothing  pleasant  upon 
which  they  could  come  to  rest. 

"The  capitalists  have  got  us,  old  man  1" 

"Shut  up,  you  fool." 

Manon  had  begun  to  speak,  and  in  that  little,  quiet 
room  Paul  Brent  had  held  out  a  hand  to  Marie  Castener. 
Instinctively  she  drew  a  motherly  chair  nearer  to  the  bed. 

"Can  you  hear?" 

"Yes ;  she  is  telling  them  everything." 

Paul  lay  and  looked  at  the  blue  sky.  His  body  ached ; 
it  hurt  him  to  breathe,  but  he  was  conscious  of  a  great 
tranquillity,  the  contentment  of  a  sick  man  who  surrenders 
himself  and  his  fate  to  the  care  of  others. 

"I  am  glad,"  he  said. 

Manon  was  invisible  to  them,  but  her  voice  and  the 
words  that  she  uttered  made  her  visible  to  Paul  Brent. 


336  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

She  was  speaking  very  slowly,  and  with  the  naive  per- 
suasiveness of  a  complete  and  intimate  simplicity.  Brent 
could  picture  her  standing  on  the  raised  path  in  front  of 
her  house,  rather  pale  but  very  determined,  looking  steadily 
at  these  many  familiar  faces,  her  eyes  as  dark  as  her  coal- 
black  hair.  She  did  not  hesitate  or  search  for  dramatic 
effect,  but  told  them  the  tale  of  her  house  of  adventure — 
how  the  English  soldier — Paul  Brent — had  come  into  her 
life,  how  Bibi  had  grown  jealous  of  their  home,  and  how 
his  brute  violence  had  lost  him  his  sight.  She  did  not 
attempt  to  excuse  Paul's  concealment  of  his  identity,  but 
she  explained  it. 

"I  will  tell  you,"  she  said,  "how  it  came  about.  He 
had  been  in  an  English  prison  before  the  war;  he  had 
made  himself  responsible  for  another  man's  rogueries. 
After  the  war  he  did  not  wish  to  return  to  England,  but 
he  desired  to  begin  life  again  as  a  Frenchman.  He  came 
to  Beaucourt  where  he  had  buried  his  friend,  and  here  we 
met  again,  by  chance — for  he  had  billeted  himself  in  my 
cellar." 

She  held  tb.e  crowd  on  the  most  delicate  of  threads, 
and  instinctively  she  made  haste  to  strengthen  it. 

"Many  of  you  will  ask  me  why  I  trusted  him,  a  man 
who  was  a  deserter,  and  almost  a  stranger  to  me.  I  will 
tell  you. 

"He  had  helped  me  to  bury  my  treasure.  When  I 
returned  to  Beaucourt,  it  was  still  there.  .  .  . 

"He  intended  to  go  away;  it  was  I  who  asked  him  to 
stay.  .  .  . 

"He  told  me  the  whole  truth  from  the  very  beginning, 
and  when  we  realized  that  we  loved  each  other,  and  that 
he  wished  to  marry  me  and  remain  in  Beaucourt,  he  told 
the  truth  to  Messieurs  Lefebre  and  Durand,  and  this  very 
week  he  was  to  have  surrendered  himself  to  the  English 
in  order  that  our  marriage  might  be  honest  and  clean." 

It  was  Bibi  who  interrupted  her,  and  it  was  this  very 
interruption  that  gave  her  the  inspiration  that  she  needed. 

"It  is  rather  late  in  the  day — to  marry." 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTUKE  337 

She  turned  to  Bibi  with  a  calm  frankness. 

"You  hear  what  this  man  says?  I  will  answer  him. 
Had  I  given  my  whole  self  to  my  betrothed,  would  Louis 
Blanc  be  the  man  to  accuse  me  of  shame?  But  it  is  not 

80." 

She  faced  the  crowd  again,  with  her  hands  on  her  bosom. 

"Am  I  stripping  myself  that  justice  may  be  done  to 
the  man  I  love  ?  Why  do  I  love  him  so  much  ?  Because 
he  is  not  so  stupid  as  most  men,  because  he  did  not  ask 
me  to  give  him  the  thing  that  most  men  ask  for,  because 
I  could  trust  him.  He  helped  to  build  my  house;  he 
helped  to  make  my  home;  he  protected  me.  We  are 
lovers,  yes,  but  he  waited,  he  held  back.  Do  we  love 
men  who  are  generous  and  honourable  and  masters  of 
their  own  bodies  ?  Or  do  we  worship  the  animal  ? — the 
beast  that  seizes  love  by  the  throat  and  makes  it  nothing 
but  a  carcass  ?  I  stand  by  the  man  who  has  given  me  the 
labour  of  his  hands,  the  man  whom  I  love  because  he  does 
good  things.  Have  not  the  war  and  these  ruins  made  us 
long  for  a  life  that  looks  happily  at  children  and  trees  and 
gardens — the  clean  linen  hanging  in  the  orchard — the 
steady  eyes  of  the  quiet  fellow  who  loves  you  and  works 
for  you  ?  Envy  and  violence  are  hateful  to  me.  I  ask 
to  be  left  alone  with  the  man  who  healed  the  wounds  of 
my  home  with  the  labour  of  his  hands." 

She  stood  in  silence,  holding  out  her  hands  to  these 
peasants,  and  instantly  the  crowd  rose  to  her  with  pas- 
sionate enthusiasm.  She  had  won  them.  She  had  given 
her  heart  into  their  hands,  and  they  offered  her  their 
human  and  simple  blessing  in  return.  Philipon  the  smith 
was  the  first  to  give  expression  to  the  emotion  that  stirred 
them  all.  He  came  to  her  behind  the  row  of  chairs  and 
kissed  Manon  on  the  forehead. 

"You  have  shown  us  your  heart,  and  we  see  how 
good  it  is." 

The  women  were  more  deeply  moved  than  the  men, 
for  only  women  know  what  a  good  man  means  to  a 
woman.  They  came  crowding  round  Manon,  holding  out 


338  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

their  hands  to  her.  Old  Mere  Vitry  had  tears  in  her 
eyes. 

"Brave  words,  my  child." 

"We  believe  it  all — every  word." 

"If  he  is  English,  what  does  it  matter?  He  is  a  good 
man." 

Bibi  was  there  in  the  midst  of  them,  surrounded  by 
petticoats,  furiously  silent.  His  teeth  showed  in  his  black 
beard. 

"These  cows,"  he  said. 

Someone  heard  him. 

"He  calls  us  cows!  We  women  have  something  to 
say  to  him." 

Monsieur  Lefebre  was  on  his  feet,  and  his  deep  and 
pleasant  voice  was  calling  for  silence. 

"My  children,  have  patience.  Let  us  be  just.  Mon- 
sieur Clemenceau  is  here  to  judge;  let  us  leave  it  to  him." 

They  obeyed  Monsieur  Lefebre,  and  stood  waiting  for 
the  old  man  in  the  chair  to  speak  to  them.  He  had  not 
moved,  but  sat  there  like  a  figure  of  granite,  imperturb- 
able, inexorable.  His  eyes  were  fixed  on  Louis  Blanc. 

"Let  us  keep  to  facts,"  he  began,  "the  things  that  all 
of  us  can  see  and  understand.  Louis  Blanc,  I  am  speaking 
to  you." 

Bibi  raised  his  blind  face  defiantly. 

"Begin.    I  am  ready." 

"You  were  a  soldier?" 

"I  was  a  soldier;  I  have  a  medal." 

"Very  good.  But  when  you  came  back  to  Beaucourt, 
what  did  you  do  ?" 

"I  wished  to  rebuild  my  hotel,  but  the  luck  was 
against  me.  There  was  no  labour  to  be  had,  and  these 
people  had  thieved  the  best  of  the  stuff." 

Anatole  Durand  interrupted  him. 

"That  is  not  true.  They  took  what  lay  ready  to  their 
hands — and  they  have  repaid  it." 

Clemenceau  smiled  at  Anatole. 

"Please  leave  it  to  me,  monsieur.     TTow,  I  ask  you, 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  339 

Louis  Blanc,  did  you  move  a  single  brick  or  use  your 
hands  to  help  clearing  the  ruins  ?" 

"No.    It  is  not  my  way." 
"You  are  blind,  now." 

"Yes." 

"We  have  been  told  how  you  came  by  your  blindness. 
Do  you  deny  it  ?" 

Bibi's  face  was  all  white  and  twisted. 

"You  have  their  word  for  it." 

"And  your  violence  to-day  tells  us  the  truth.  If  you 
had  no  grudge  against  these  people,  why  did  you  lie,  why 
did  you  raise  a  crowd  against  them,  why  did  you  try  to 
kill  this  man?" 

Bibi  shrugged. 

"It  can  pass,"  he  said,  and  Clemenceau  smiled. 

"Now  then,  when  you  came  to  Beaucourt  a  second 
time,  what  did  you  do?" 

"I  put  up  a  hut." 

"Yes?" 

"I  sold  wine." 

"To  the  peasants  ?" 

"No,  to  the  workmen.     I  have  no  use  for  the  cattle." 

"You  made  men  drunk — sometimes?" 

"It  is  possible." 

"Is  it  a  good  thing  to  make  men  drunk,  to  turn  them 
into  violent  beasts,  when  there  is  work  to  be  done  ?" 

"I  am  not  God,  monsieur." 

"Perhaps  that  is  a  blessing!" 

"Madame  Latour  also  sells  wine,  but  that  is  nothing, 
I  suppose !  If  an  angel  makes  men  drunk ! " 

"I  will  ask  Beaucourt  a  question.  Has  the  village 
been  the  worse  for  Madame  Latour's  wine  ?" 

A  number  of  voices  replied  to  him. 

"Never,  monsieur,  never." 

Monsieur  Clemenceau  had  never  ceased  to  watch  Louis 
Blanc,  but  now  he  let  his  eyes  wander  over  the  faces  of 
the  crowd.  For  half  a  minute  he  remained  silent,  eyelids 
half  closed,  his  head  sunk  between  his  shoulders.  Anatole 


340  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

was  holding  Manon's  arm  and  whispering  something  in  her 
ear.  Lefebre  looked  round  at  these  people  of  his,  and  his 
eyes  blessed  them. 

Clemenceau  was  speaking  again. 

"Is  there  anyone  in  this  crowd  who  has  anything  to 
bring  against  Madame  Latour's  partner?" 

There  was  a  short  silence,  but  no  one  spoke. 

"Nothing  ?  Is  there  anyone  here  who  can  speak  in  his 
favour  ?" 

Half  a  dozen  voices  were  raised  at  once. 

"Yes,  monsieur,  he  has  helped  many  of  us." 

"He  worked  at  my  chimney." 

"He  helped  me  with  my  roof." 

"And  mine." 

"Without  him  I  could  never  have  got  my  walls  straight." 

"He  has  given  us  his  hands  and  his  head." 

Clemenceau  nodded.  Then  he  sat  up  very  straight  in 
his  chair,  and  made  a  sign  for  them  to  be  silent.  His  eyes 
seemed  to  light  up;  the  colour  of  them  to  deepen.  His 
voice  had  a  more  ringing  and  passionate  note,  the  voice  of 
the  man  who  had  inspired  France. 

"My  children,  it  seems  to  me  very  simple.  Let  us 
look  at  these  two  men,  and  at  their  lives.  On  the  one 
hand  you  have  this  Englishman  who  works  with  his  hands, 
who  is  ready  to  help  other  people,  who  creates,  who  re- 
stores. Behind  me  is  the  house  which  all  of  you  know  so 
well,  a  house  that  was  in  ruins,  but  has  become  alive  once 
more,  a  home.  On  the  other  hand  you  have  this  Louis 
Blanc,  a  man  who  destroys,  a  man  who  is  ready  to  burn 
and  to  kill.  What  has  he  done  for  Beaucourt?  Brought 
envy  and  anger  and  drunkenness  into  it,  turned  French- 
men against  Frenchmen,  taught  the  religion  of  violence 
and  of  hate.  My  children,  I  am  no  bigot,  no  Calvinist; 
sometimes  I  have  hated  the  so-called  good  men,  and  loved 
the  sinners;  but  in  this  case  my  heart  and  head  do  not 
quarrel." 

He  looked  at  Bibi,  Ledoux  and  Crapaud. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE          341 

"Louis  Blanc,  and  you  others,  have  you  anything  to 
say  to  me  ?" 

Bibi  folded  his  arms;  he  was  defiant. 

"Nothing." 

"And  you?" 

Lazare  Ledoux's  eyes  could  not  meet  Clemenceau's ; 
he  was  capable  of  nothing  but  mutterings. 

"I  am  a  Red.  We  do  not  waste  words  on  the  shop- 
keepers." 

It  is  doubtful  whether  Clemenceau  heard  him.  He 
had  risen  from  his  chair.  His  eyes  flashed;  that  sturdy 
figure  of  his  seemed  to  dilate  and  to  give  a  sudden  impres- 
sion of  immense  strength  and  passion.  His  right  hand 
shot  out  as  though  he  was  striking  a  blow;  he  pointed  at 
Bibi. 

"That  man  is  evil;  he  is  a  bad  Frenchman;  I  con- 
demn him.  Hatred  destroys;  love  builds  up.  What 
shall  be  done  with  him  ?" 

There  were  cries  from  the  crowd. 

"We  will  not  have  him  in  Beaucourt." 

For  a  moment  the  street  was  in  an  uproar.  Clemenceau 
had  beckoned  to  Manon,  and  he  was  speaking  to  her  and 
to  the  three  men,  Lefebre,  Durand  and  Philipon.  The 
people  saw  Manon  shaking  her  head.  Philipon  interposed, 
moving  that  heavy  and  emphatic  jaw  of  his,  and  beating 
the  air  with  his  right  fist  as  though  spacing  out  the  rhythm 
of  his  blunt  sentences.  No  one  in  the  street  could 
hear  what  he  said,  but  they  saw  the  "Tiger's"  face  light 
up. 

He  patted  Philipon  on  the  shoulder. 

"Solomon !  Let  Beaucourt  make  its  own  laws  and 
carry  them  out  to-day.  But  the  man  has  property  here  ?" 

"He  will  sell  it,""  said  the  smith ;  "he  will  be  glad  to 
sell  it.  Yes." 

Anatole  Durand  had  brought  out  his  inevitable  note- 
book. 

"The  site  of  the  hotel  and  an  orchard  on  the  Rue  de 


342  THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE 

Bonniere.  I  will  buy  the  property — at  any  time.  What 
do  you  say,  Monsieur  Lefebre?" 

"This  is  justice,"  said  the  priest;  "let  us  drive  out 
the  wolves." 

Philipon  took  the  lead  in  the  last  act  of  this  village 
drama.  With  his  hammer  over  his  shoulder  he  marshalled 
the  crowd  in  the  Rue  de  Picardie,  made  them  a  short 
speech,  and  then  led  them  to  the  Place  de  1'Eglise.  Bibi, 
Ledoux  and  Crapaud  marched  in  a  bunch  in  the  centre  of 
the  crowd,  guarded  by  the  men.  When  they  reached  the 
Place  de  1'Eglise,  Philipon  called  a  halt.  He  saluted  the 
church,  and  standing  on  a  block  of  masonry,  spoke  these 
words  to  the  people  of  Beaucourt: 

"Here,  in  the  centre  of  our  village,  we  condemn  these 
men,  we  cast  them  out.  Let  them  be  accursed.  Let 
them  never  show  their  faces  again  in  Beaucourt.  Are  we 
agreed?" 

The  crowd  echoed  his  judgment. 

"We  cast  them  out,"  was  the  burden  of  their  cry. 

They  marched  on  down  the  Rue  de  Bonniere  to  Bibi's 
buvette  among  the  apple  trees,  and  here  the  crowd  halted 
again  with  great  orderliness  and  in  silence.  A  dozen  or 
so  of  Goblet's  men  were  standing  at  the  factory  gate,  and 
three  or  four  were  with  Barbe  in  the  buvette,  but  they 
were  cowed,  and  made  no  attempt  to  interfere.  Barbe, 
spitting  like  a  cat,  was  brought  down  into  the  street.  The 
tin  of  petroleum  was  taken  from  Pompom  Crapaud,  and 
Philipon,  like  some  inexorable  priest  offering  up  a  sacri- 
fice, drenched  the  piled  chairs  and  tables  and  set  the  place 
alight.  The  buvette  blazed,  and  the  crowd  stood  in  silence, 
watching  the  flames,  and  knowing  that  an  act  of  primitive 
justice  had  been  done. 

"Allons!" 

Philipon  marshalled  them  again,  with  Bibi,  the  woman 
and  the  two  men  at  the  head  of  the  column.  They  moved 
on  along  the  Bonniere  road  into  the  wilderness  that  was 
ceasing  to  be  a  wilderness,  and  where  Nature  and  the 
hands  of  men  were  making  the  earth  fruitful  and  good. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  ADVENTURE  343 

They  held  on  until  they  reached  the  dead  trees  at  Les 
Ormes,  and  here  they  cast  off  Bibi  and  the  others  into  the 
calm  and  acquiescent  splendour  of  a  summer  twilight. 

Philipon  stood  like  a  black  figure  of  fate,  holding  up 
his  hammer. 

"Outcasts,"  he  said,  "go  and  learn  to  save  France  else- 
where. Never  shall  you  return  to  us.  We  peasants  are 
obstinate.  Go." 


XLVI 

WHIXE  the  peasants  of  Beaucourt  cast  Louis  Blanc  out 
into  the  wilderness,  two  people  were  sitting  beside  Paul 
Brent's  bed,  a  man  and  a  woman.  The  man  had  a  despatch 
box  on  his  knees,  and  he  was  using  it  as  a  desk  upon 
which  to  write.  The  woman  was  holding  Paul's  hands, 
and  smiling  at  him  with  eyes  of  tenderness  and  of  tran- 
quillity. 

The  man  who  was  writing  raised  his  white  head.  He 
smiled,  and  passed  the  paper  to  Manon.  With  their  heads 
together  on  the  pillow  they  read  what  Georges  Clemenceau 
had  written  in  that  room  whose  window  overlooked  the 
garden. 

"I  ask  you  to  be  generous  to  Paul  Brent.  Let  him 
return  to  us  soon,  for  I  wish  to  be  present  at  his  marriage. 
He  will  make  a  good  Frenchman,  for  he  knows  how  to 
work. 

"GEOBGES  CLEMENCEAU." 


344 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL 


A     000  025  274     2 


